A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been equipped with a nanoscale force sensor and signal transducer composed of a single D2 molecule that is confined in the STM junction. The uncalibrated sensor is used to obtain ultrahigh geometric image resolution of a complex organic molecule adsorbed on a noble metal surface. By means of conductance-distance spectroscopy and corresponding density functional calculations the mechanism of the sensor and transducer is identified. It probes the short-range Pauli repulsion and converts this signal into variations of the junction conductance.

Local, noncovalent intermolecular interactions in organic monolayers have been directly imaged using scanning tunneling hydrogen microscopy (STHM). Unprecedented spatial resolution directly reveals the relation between the intermolecular interactions, the molecular chemical structure, and the ordering in the film.

Individual Xe atoms as well as single CO and CH(4) molecules adsorbed at the tip apex of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) function as microscopic force sensors that change the tunneling current in response to the forces acting from the surface. An STM equipped with any of these sensors is able to image the short-range Pauli repulsion and thus resolve the inner structure of large organic adsorbate molecules. Differences in the performance of the three studied sensors suggest that the sensor functionality can be tailored by tuning the interaction between the sensor particle and the STM tip.

Lifting a single molecular wire off the surface with a combined frequency-modulated atomic force and tunneling microscope it is possible to monitor the evolution of both the wire configuration and the contacts simultaneously with the transport conductance experiment. In particular, critical points where individual bonds to the surface are broken and instabilities where the wire is prone to change its contact configuration can be identified in the force gradient and dissipation responses of the junction. This additional mechanical information can be used to unambiguously determine the conductance of a true molecular wire, that is, of a molecule that is contacted via a pointlike "crocodile clip" to each of the electrodes but is otherwise free.