Measuring sub-Angstrom displacements

from the new-tools dept.
Gina Miller writes "A July 23, 2002 EE Times.com article, Finding the charge within angstroms, reports that a team from Munich has built a highly sensitive charge detector from the combination of a quantum dot with a nanomechanical device. The team is comprised of researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians University and the Walter-Schottky Institute. This device could support realtime scanning with resolutions down to the sub-Ångstrom level. According to the group leader, Prof Blick, 'This system allows for ultra-sensitive displacement detection, which is quite important for any scanning probe application.' Applications of the technique include communications electronics as filter elements and sensor components."