The first volume in the series was released in January 2004 and the second to fourth volumes in early 2006. The field is now progressing so fast that there is a need for one volume every 12 to 18 months to capture latest developments.

Volume VII presents 9 chapters on a variety of new and emerging techniques and refinements of SPM applications.

Zusammenfassung
The scanning probe microscopy ?eld has been rapidly expanding. It is a demanding task to collect a timely overview of this ?eld with an emphasis on technical dev- opments and industrial applications. It became evident while editing Vols. IIV that a large number of technical and applicational aspects are present and rapidly - veloping worldwide. Considering the success of Vols. IIV and the fact that further colleagues from leading laboratories were ready to contribute their latest achie- ments, we decided to expand the series with articles touching ?elds not covered in the previous volumes. The response and support of our colleagues were excellent, making it possible to edit another three volumes of the series. In contrast to to- cal conference proceedings, the applied scanning probe methods intend to give an overview of recent developments as a compendium for both practical applications and recent basic research results, and novel technical developments with respect to instrumentation and probes. The present volumes cover three main areas: novel probes and techniques (Vol. V), charactarization (Vol. VI), and biomimetics and industrial applications (Vol. VII). Volume V includes an overview of probe and sensor technologies including integrated cantilever concepts, electrostatic microscanners, low-noise methods and improved dynamic force microscopy techniques, high-resonance dynamic force - croscopy and the torsional resonance method, modelling of tip cantilever systems, scanning probe methods, approaches for elasticity and adhesion measurements on the nanometer scale as well as optical applications of scanning probe techniques based on near?eld Raman spectroscopy and imaging.

Inhalt
Lotus Effect: Roughness-Induced Superhydrophobicity.- Gecko Feet: Natural Attachment Systems for Smart Adhesion.- Novel AFM Nanoprobes.- Nanoelectromechanical Systems Experiments and Modeling.- Application of Atom-resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy in Catalysis Research.- Nanostructuration and Nanoimaging of Biomolecules for Biosensors.- Applications of Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy (SECM).- Nanomechanical Characterization of Structural and Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives.- Development of MOEMS Devices and Their Reliability Issues.