Career and research
Quate is known for his work on acoustic and atomic force microscopy. The scanning acoustic microscope, which Quate invented with colleague R. A. Lemons in 1973,[3] has resolution exceeding optical microscopes, revealing structure in opaque or even transparent materials not visible to optics.
In 1981, Quate read about a new type of microscope able to examine electrically conductive materials. Together with Gerd Binnig and Christoph Gerber, he developed a related instrument that would work on non-conductive materials, including biological tissue, and the atomic force microscope was born.[4] AFM traces surface contours using a needle to maintain constant pressure against the surface to reveal atomic detail.[5] AFM is the foundation of the $100 million nanotechnology industry. Binnig, Quate and Gerber were rewarded with the Kavli Prize in 2016 for developing the atomic force microscope.
Quate was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences, having been elected to the former for his contributions to "research, teaching, and management in microwave and solid-state electronics."[6] He was awarded the 1980 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award and the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1988 for "the invention and development of the scanning acoustic microscope."[7] Quate became a senior research fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1984.[7] In 2000, he became a recipient of the Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[8] Quate died on July 6, 2019, at the age of 95.[9][10]
