ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

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Figure 10.2: Nanoscale view of substrate to STM tip electron tunneling. By Paul
Jablonka (Schneiker and Hameroff, 1987).
Mode Number I II III IV
Quantity held constant i, v h, v h, i h, i, v
Quantity measured h i v i/v
Table 10-1: STM operating modes; i, v, h are tunneling current, voltage, and
height (tip to sample surface distance) respectively (Schneiker, 1986).
The 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics was split between the 50 year old
cornucopia of microknowledge, the electron microscope, and a brand new,
unfulfilled technology, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The STM half of
the Prize was awarded to Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of the IBM Zurich
Research Laboratories where STM was invented in 1981 (Binnig, Rohrer, Gerber
and Weibel, 1982). The principle used in STM is extremely simple (Figure 10.1).
Piezoceramic materials expand or shrink extremely small distances (i.e.
angstroms, or tenth nanometers) in response to applied voltage. In STM,
piezoceramic holders scan an ultrasharp conducting tip (such as tungsten) over a
conducting or semiconducting surface (Figure 10.1). When the STM tip is within
a few angstroms of a surface, a small voltage applied between the two gives rise