The Foundation for Advances in Medicine and Science (FAMS), the organizers of SCANNING 98, sponsored its third annual Atomic Force Microscopy/Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Symposium at the Omni Inner Harbor Hotelin Baltimore, Maryland, from May 9 to 12, 1998. This book represents the compilation of papers that were presented at the AFM/STM Symposium as well as a few that were presented at SCANNING 96 and SCANNING 97 meetings that took place in Monterey, California. The purpose of the symposium was to provide an interface between scientists and engineers, representatives of industry, government and academia, all of whom have a common interest in probe microscopies. The meetings offered an ideal forum where ideas could easily be exchanged and where individuals from diverse fields who are on the cutting edge ofprobe microscopy research could communicate with one another. Experts in probe microscopy from around the world representing a wide range of disciplines including physics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, chemistry, material science, etc., were invited to participate. The format of the meeting was structured so as to encourage communication among these individuals. During the first day's sessions papers were presented on general topics such as application of scanning probe microscopy in materials science; STM and scanning tunneling spectroscopy of organic materials; fractal analysis in AFM; and nanomanipulation. Other papers presented included unexpected ordering of a molecule; synthesis ofpeptides and oligonucleotides; and analysis oflunar soils from Apollo 11.