Nanotips and nanomagnetism

Nanotips are nanoscale protrusions ending in one atom fabricated in vacuum by 2D surface melting and field gradient. They are field emission sources of electrons and ions, producing self-collimated and strongly coherent beams with high brightness. Using the nanotip as the source in a projection microscope results in the Fresnel projection microscope. It allows imaging at energies less than 300 eV of fragile nanoscale structures which are either amplitude or phase nano-objects. Experimental Fresnel images of magnetic nanoparticles show the potential for mapping very weak magnetic stray fields with the Fresnel projection microscope. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.