Editorial - Special issue on recent emerging technologies in atomic force microscopy

The invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) has led to numerous breakthroughs in a wide range of fields of science by allowing for imaging down to a nanometer scale. The investion of the AFM was preceded by the invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) in 1981 by the Swiss scientists Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer. This invention led to Binnig and Rohrer being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Later, in 1986, Binnig, Quate and Gerber invented the AFM