Tungsten needle is widely used as a probe for applications of scanning tunneling microscope (STM) - an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level that is recognized as one of the world's top ten scientific and technological achievements in the 1980s.
More details, please visit:
http://tungsten.com.cn/tungsten-needles.html
It has been reported that the probe of scanning tunneling microscope can also be made of platinum wire, iridium wire, gold wire, silver wire and other metal materials with excellent conductivity, but platinum wire, iridium wire and gold wire are expensive, so they are used only when the requirements on interaction between needle and surface is high. The high-purity tungsten wire used as the raw material for preparing probe has the characteristics of excellent electrical conductivity, abrasion resistance, and creep resistance. It also has high hardness and high strength. Besides, its preparation cost is low, so there is no doubt that tungsten needle is favored.
