Virtually everyone associated with a science or engineering discipline has some baseline knowledge of optical microscopy; and most attendees at this conference have a reasonable exposure to at least some form of electron microscopy. The many developments in instrumentation and application require the modern microscopist to continuously follow the literature to stay aware of the ongoing improvements and advances in these microscopies. While electron and optical microscopes have been around for many decades, the family of microscopes known as Scanned Probe Microscopy (SPM) are just entering their second decade; and are actually in there first decade of widespread use.

The most commonly used forms of scanned probe microscopy are the force microscopes; commonly referred to as Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). This includes a wide variety of microscopy modes that are generally made available as modifications of a basic AFM. Before describing the basic versions of AFM, the fundamentals of instrument design must be addressed.