Liquid crystals-as seen by the scanning tunnelling and force microscopes

Liquid crystals have provided an invaluable service for the development of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). In return, the STM has done well for liquid crystals. What is meant by this anthropomorphising of scientific techniques and materials? The technique of STMwas originally confined to the study of metallic surfaces by the belief that only intrinsically conducting materials could be successfully imaged. Then liquid crystals were imaged with stunning clarity. They served as well-behaved subjects that proved unambiguously that the STM could image organic molecules. Their tendency to selfassemble into immobilised planes and their readily recognisable molecular moieties facilitated recording and interpretation of images. Those images are the subject of this overview of STM and AFM (atomic force microscope) studies of molecular ordering in liquid crystal arrays [1]. © 1993 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.