DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A HARDWARE/SOFTWARE SOLUTION FOR THE ACQUISITION, VISUALIZATION AND PROCESSING OF IMAGES OBTAINED USING AN EDUCATIONAL SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE

Abstract

Scanning tunneling microscopy has broughttheory to a practical world of atomic scale interaction.Though the basics of technique are worldwide known, thestudents’ hands on experience with the atomic scale is stilllimited. In this paper we present the development of ahardware/software solution for the acquisition, visualizationand processing of images obtained using a STM-kitdeveloped locally, namely STM-Uniandes. The hardwarecomponent of the solution uses a WiringTM board, to control,read and transmit the surface information to a computer viaan USB port. The software consists of a visualizationapplication and an image processing library, both written inJavaTM and licensed as GPL. The solution is aimed to becontinually improved by students and users allowing them tosignificantly extend their understanding of data acquisitionand manipulation. We obtained images of a sample of goldon polycarbonate and improved its visual quality usingimage processing algorithms.

Index Terms - Digital Image Processing, STM, Wiring