To address the increasing activity of NT-MDT Co. on the US and world markets of scanning probe microscopy equipment, the company has invited the experienced AFM developers and practitioners: Sergei Magonov, John Alexander and Sergey Belikov to form the research unit NT-MDT Development in Tempe, Arizona.

This team, which has combined SPM experience of almost 60 years, will focus its efforts on developments and applications of novel multi-frequency SPM techniques related to quantitative nanomechanical and electric measurements of various materials.

The leader of the team Dr. Sergei Magonov was educated in the former USSR where he got his PhD and has conducted research on polymers in the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1988 Dr. Magonov moved to Germany (Freiburg University) where he applied the first scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and the atomic force microscopy (AFM) to different materials. The scientific results obtained in this period were summarized in the book (written jointly with Prof. M. Whangbo) “Surface Analysis with STM and AFM”, VCH Weinheim 1996.

In 1995 Sergei joined Digital Instruments – a manufacturer of the scanning probe microscopes where he was involved in development of various AFM applications to soft materials. After spending 12 years with Digital Instruments/Veeco Instruments he moved in 2007 to Agilent Technologies, another manufacturer of scanning probe microscopy, where he continued the research in AFM.

John Alexander became familiar with SPM in 1986 when he was designing a low-temperature STM microscope during his physics studies in Akron University. After graduation with Masters in Physics in 1988 John entered one of the first SPM businesses – Angstrom Technology Inc. in Arizona.

For the 20 plus years John Alexander has worked as the leading electronics and system engineer in several companies manufacturing scanning probe microscopes: Park Scientific, KLM-Tencor, Molecular Imaging, and most recently at Agilent Technologies.

He is coauthor of a number research articles and 6 US patents in scanning probe microscopy. Recent interests are in the development of multi frequency AFM measurements.

Sergey Belikov educated in former USSR where he received MS at Kiev Polytechnic Institute and PhD at Institute of Cybernetics of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. His research activities in mathematics were focused on developments of averaging methods recently applied in AFM.

Since 1991 Sergey is working in a number of research institutions and companies in the USA where his expertise was implemented in development of different software for various research and industrial control applications.

Dr. Belikov’s activities in scanning probe microscopy were established during his employment at Veeco Instruments (2001-2008) where he played the key role in design of nanomechanical analysis package and other applications. Before joining the NT-MDT Development Sergey worked in 3M Company. Sergey is a coauthor of 10 patents and over 70 research papers.

The NT-MDT Development started the activities in April 2011.