A scheme of the scanning rotational microscope is designed. This scheme is based on using carbon nanotubes simultaneously as a probe tip and as a bolt/nut pair which converts translational displacements of two piezo actuators into pure rotation of the probe tip. First-principles calculations of the interaction energy between movable and rotational parts of the microscope confirms the capability for its operation. The scanning rotational microscope with a chemically functionalized nanotube-based tip can be used to study how the interaction between individual molecules or a molecule and a surface depends on their relative orientation.
@article{arxiv.1204.5245,
title = {Nanotube-based scanning rotational microscope},
author = {Andrey M. Popov and Irina V. Lebedeva and Andrey A. Knizhnik},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.5245},
year = {2015}
}