ABSTRACT
Recent advances in nanotechnology have been enabled by tools capable of fabricating and imaging nanoscale features, measuring materials properties at the nanoscale, and manipulating nanosized objects. One family of techniques in particular, namely, scanning probe microscopy (SPM), has made a signifi cant impact on a wide variety of fi elds due primarily to its versatility, resolution, and sensitivity. The fi eld of SPM has evolved from the inventions of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in 1982 (Binnig et al. 1982) and the atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1986 (Binnig et al. 1986) to an impressive measurement and manipulation platform capable of measuring chemical recognition events and, e.g., structural, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic, properties of materials, and of manipulating at the single-molecule and atomic levels. Whereas the STM can be used to construct atomic scale images of conducting materials based on the tunneling current between tip and sample, the AFM can be applied to any material, and images are constructed from the interaction force between the tip and sample. These tools have been identifi ed as ushering in the nanometer age (Rohrer 1994) and have been essential to the development of nanotechnology, i.e., the measurement, manipulation, and exploitation of materials and materials properties at the nanoscale. Nanotechnologies applied to biology and medicine are thus nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine, and can be described as the characterization and manipulation of biological systems and the diagnosis and therapy of disease at the nanoscale using nanomaterials and nanotools. The use of nanomedicine for, e.g., biosensing, drug-design, and the design and characterization of nanomaterials for drug delivery and power-generators holds the promise for future breakthroughs in therapies and diagnostics.
