founded 1997 in switzerland founder dominik braendlin lukas howald and robert sum headquarters liestal switzerland area served global key people dominik braendlin lukas howald and urs matter products atomic force microscopes and scanning tunneling microscopes website https www.nanosurf.com nanosurf ag headquartered in liestal switzerland is a manufacturer and supplier of nano microscopes for industrial and academic research 1 as well as for educational purposes . 2 nanosurf s atomic force microscopes afm and scanning tunneling microscopes stm are used for metrological surface inspections and for the visualization of structures on the nanometer scale . 3 4 nanosurf worked with nasa s phoenix mars mission to provide the atomic force microscopy module for the mars probe . 5 contents 1 history 2 phoenix mars lander mission 3 first atomic force microscope image on mars 4 references history edit in 1997 nanosurf was awarded the start up label by the swiss government agency for innovation kti . 6 nanosurf was founded june 4 1997 7 in order to design scanning probe microscopes 8 that were accessible for everyone . the nanosurf founders were inspired by hans joachim guentherodt 9 the director of the swiss nccr nanoscale science head of the institute of physics of the university of basel coordinator of the swiss nanoscience institute and chairman of the national center of competence in research nccr nanoscale science . in 1998 the nasa jet propulsion laboratory selected the nanosurf atomic force microscope for its mission to mars . nanosurf joined a consortium consisting of the institute of microtechnology university of neuchatel and the institute of physics university of basel to achieve this goal . nanosurf was awarded the innovation prize by the swiss cantons of basel stadt and basel landschaft in 1998 . in 2000 nanosurf was awarded the swiss technology award by the swiss federal industry agency . the easyscan atomic force microscope is introduced to the market . nanosurf received the 2003 kmu entrepreneurial award by the chamber of commerce of the cantons of basel landschaft and basel stadt . in 2007 nanosurf received the swiss technology award vontobel stiftung for the automated nanite afm system . 10 on august 4 phoenix mars probe was launched carrying a nanosurf afm scanner . since its founding in 1997 nanosurf ag established subsidiaries in boston america langen hesse germany 11 and shanghai china . phoenix mars lander mission edit nanosurf the university of neuch tel and the university of basel were part of a swiss consortium 12 challenged to equip the phoenix mars probe 13 with the first atomic force microscope in space . 14 15 this atomic force microscope was designed to be part of the microscopy electrochemistry and a conductivity analyzer meca unit built by nasa s jet propulsion laboratory . 16 it was a key component of the phoenix probe s ensemble of on board scientific instruments . 17 nanosurf contributed to the phoenix mars mission 18 with an afm that recorded high resolution images of martian dust . these images allowed researchers to study the history of water on mars and represent the highest resolution images ever recorded on another planet . 17 nanosurf joined in developing building and testing an atomic force microscope afm for planetary science applications in particular for the study of martian soil . 19 the system consists of a controller board an electromagnetic scanner and micro fabricated sensor chip . eight cantilevers with integrated piezoresistive deflection sensors are aligned in a row and are engaged one after the other to provide redundancy in case of tip or cantilever failure . silicon and molded diamond tips are used for probing the sample . images can be recorded in both static and dynamic operation mode . in the latter case excitation of the resonance frequencies of the cantilevers is achieved by vibrating the whole chip with a piezoelectric disk . this instrument represents the highest spatial resolution instrument ever produced for in situ planetary studies . the required level of operational robustness was achieved by using a redundant array of microfabricated cantilevers . 19 first atomic force microscope image on mars edit the first image recorded by an atomic force microscope on another planet . 20 on july 9 2008 mars day 44 of the phoenix mars mission 21 the atomic force microscope on the mars lander recorded an image of a test grid which serves as a calibration for the microscope . this image was successfully transmitted to earth by the phoenix mars probe and demonstrates full functionality of the nano imaging device under the harsh martian conditions satisfying the nasa phoenix team as well as the swiss scientific team responsible for the development of the microscope . 19 the area imaged by the microscope is 40 40 m small enough to fit on an eyelash . the grooves in this substrate are 14 m 0.00055 in apart from center to center . the vertical dimension is exaggerated in the image to make surface details more visible . the grooves are 300 nm 1.2 10 5 in deep . references edit nanosurf homepage http www.nanosurf.com swissinfo the swiss news and information platform swiss firms in this year s tornado 100 listing 17.11.2003 mila trombitas uni sono a story about university spin off nanosurf company university of basel 1998 nanotechnology now swissnanotech celebrates mars landing university research university of basel.mars sonde phoenix mit basler rasterkraftmikroskop erfolgreich gestartet . university research 2007 . swissnanotech company profile nanosurf ag october 2003 vol.i issue 4 commercial register of canton basel country internet full extract basler zeitung precision berings for high tech bic s 09.05.2001 department of physics university of basel prof. dr. hans joachim g ntherodt . basel area news nanosurf wins swiss technology award 2007 april 2007 basel area news nanosruf opens the first subsidiary in usa 12 juni 2008 project partners university of basel . national aeronautics and space administration phoenix launch mission to the martian polar north august 2007 university research university of basel.phoenix gelandet spin off der universit t basel baut rasterkraftmikroskop f r marsmission . university research 2008 . epfl afm for planetary exploration official homepage of the nasa phoenix mars mission a b swissnanotech nanosurf contributes to nasa s phoenix mars lander mission nasa phoenix mars mission overview a b c t. akiyama s. gautsch n. f. de rooij u. staufer ph. niedermann l. howald d. m ller a. tonin h. r. hidberd w. t. pike and m. h. hecht atomic force microscope for planetary applications sensors and actuators a physical volume 91 issue 3 15 july 2001 pages 321 325 nasa first atomic force microscope image from mars afm on mars project retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title nanosurf & oldid 718808257 categories manufacturing companies of switzerlandswiss brandscompanies established in 1997liestal navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 5 may 2016 at 19 13 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view