​Next Generation Nanoprobe Technology Committee

It has been 25 years since the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, and scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technology continues to rapidly evolve. Its achievements are expected to further expand into industrial applications in the future. Therefore, the committee took the pioneering initiative to compile a roadmap for SPM technology with the aim of predicting the advancements in academic, technical, and applied aspects of this field and providing guidance to the wider community.

A "Roadmap Working Group" was organized, comprising committee members as well as external researchers and engineers. Each member was assigned their respective expertise area, and in addition to regular meetings, separate sessions were held to consolidate the information uniformly. In the year 2000, the committee published the world's first "Scanning Probe Microscopy Roadmap 2000". This publication stood out for its predictions extending up to 20-30 years into the future for each technology and application.

Subsequently, progress and development in various fields, including atomic force microscopy, have accelerated at a pace surpassing the roadmap's projections. We believe that the creation of the roadmap has significantly stimulated progress in these fields.

Five years after the previous roadmap, in late 2005, the committee published the "Scanning Probe Microscopy Roadmap 2005", aiming to reassess the progress made since the previous roadmap and set targets for the next roadmap. In March 2006, a commemorative symposium was held at the 53rd Applied Physics Society Conference. Thanks to the previous roadmap, SPM research, development, and applications in Japan have rapidly accelerated, positioning Japan at the forefront globally.

To further accelerate this momentum and aim for a globally recognized SPM roadmap originating from Japan, the committee published the first English version of the SPM roadmap, titled "Roadmap 2005 of Scanning Probe Microscopy", in May 2006 through Springer. Additionally, in July 2006, a symposium was held at an international conference to commemorate the publication.

These roadmaps have been published by Maruzen Co., Ltd. and Springer. We have compiled a new roadmap intended for web publication and will sequentially release it on this website starting from January 2012. Part of the expenses for compiling and publishing was covered by the "Academic Promotion Special Fund" of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, contributed by the Japan Industrial Club. We express our gratitude to the Japan Industrial Club for their support.