Near-field microscopies in the study of glass

The introduction in the seventies of various surface spectrometries radically transformed the study of the surface of glass. These methods, based on the emission of particles under bombardment by probing beams, are composition sensitive with varied in-depth resolution but, even when combined with the scanning electron microscope, give only limited information on the local structure of the superficial layers. The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, followed by the atomic force microscope in the early nineties, permitted for the first time three-dimensional structure of surfaces to be obtained at an atomic level. The development of a variety of sensors (optical, ionic, thermal, magnetic, etc.) further increased the scope of these 'local-probe' or 'near-field' microscopies. These new powerful techniques are currently applied to many problems in surface chemistry, physics and biology but, strangely enough, up to now, very few studies have been made on the surface of glass.