as a heater as well as a thermometer, so as to inject evanescent temperature waves into a sample and to allow sub-surface imaging of polymers and other materials. The sub-surface detail detected corresponds to variations in heat capacity or thermal conductivity. Ramping the temperature of the probe, and thus the temperature of the small sample region in contact with it, allows localized thermal analysis and/or thermomechanometry to be performed. References Further reading , erratum in 19(5), 14 (2004) Scanning probe microscopy Spectroscopy