The importance of molecular structure and conformation: learning with scanning probe microscopy

Molecular structure holds a key to understanding Nature's intricate design mechanisms and blueprints. If we can understand her blueprints and basic materials, perhaps we can begin to mimic her beautiful products more cost effectively and with less detrimental environmental consequences. Higher resolution instrumentation has allowed us to study single molecules. Indeed, many stellar contributions to the field have come forth in the last couple of years. We can measure the forces required to unravel individual domains of biological molecules such as titin or DNA to a few picoNewtons resolution. This review will attempt to provide a general overview of the field of single molecule analysis using scanning force microscopy.