AFM Workshop

The mission of AFM Workshop is to develop and market innovative AFM products and components for research, development, OEMs and education. They support their customers with workshops on the construction, operation and applications of their products. They are committed to an open architecture that facilitates innovation by our customers.

Dr. Paul West is the founder of the AFM Workshop. Dr. West began his career working with scanning tunneling microscopes (STM) as a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology in 1983 where he built one of the first STM's. His career in the development and application of scanning probe microscopes spans over 25 years.

Paul pioneered the investigation of nanotechnology applications for scanning probe microscope (SPM) technology resulting in patents for nanoscale motion sensors (US Patent #5,009,111, nanoscale position sensors (US patent #5,257,024) and nanoscale digital mass storage (US patent # 4,956,817).

Innovative SPM products invented by Dr. West include:

Fully integrated AFM system having motorised sample positioners, a video microscope and vibration isolation(U.S. Patent #5,291,775).

Tip scanning light lever AFM(U.S. Patent # 5,319,960)

Resistive scanning thermal sensing probes(U.S. Patent #5,441,343)

Integrated AFM with SEM(U.S. Patent #5,455,420)

Thousands of atomic force microscopes developed by Dr. West are in use throughout the world and have resulted in numerous scientific publications, Ph.D. dissertations, and technical breakthroughs.

Dr. West is the author of numerous scientific, technical and educational publications. He served on the National Nanotechnology Initiative which resulted in the first major funding program for nanotechnology research in the United States.

Recently, in collaboration with Dr. Peter Eaton, Dr. West co-authored a book on AFM entitled "Atomic Force Microscopy" that is published by the Oxford University Press.

Primary Activity

Atomic Force Microscopes