Inside the atom, the weird effects of quantum mechanics rule. Electrons have no definite position or velocity; the results of experiments can only be expressed in terms of probabilities. One of the weirdest effects is quantum tunneling: a particle can escape a trap even when it does not have the energy to do so. Some forms of radioactive decay are due to the quantum tunneling of alpha particles out of the nucleus. Scanning tunneling microscopes rely on electrons tunneling from the scanning tip to the surface being imaged.

Quasiparticle Bound States at a Superconducting Vortex Line: Harald Hess's Zero--Bias Tunneling Peak. (Shore, Huang, Dorsey; 41)

I got excited when I heard that my old roommate Harald Hess had found a mid-gap feature in the density of states at a vortex, using a scanning tunneling microscope.

Mark Stiles' Phonons give an Ohmic Coupling. (Louis; 73)