Editorial.

The 2nd International Conference on Scanning Probe Spectroscopy (SPS) and the 30th IUVSTA Workshop was held in Hamburg, Germany, on 19-22 July 2000. SPS 2000 followed previous conferences in 1997 at Poznan, Poland. The SPS 2000 conference covered recent advances in instrumental developments, experimental methods, theoretical conceptions, and the applications of scanning probe spectroscopy. The final scientific program featured a total of 126 papers presented in 10 sessions, including 10 invited talks, 29 contributed talks, and 87 poster presentations. The session topics included scanning tunneling spectroscopy on metals, semiconductors and superconductors, spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy, inelastic scanning tunneling spectroscopy, scanning field emission spectroscopy, ballistic electron emission spectroscopy, atom probe spectroscopy, scanning force spectroscopy, scanning capacitance spectroscopy, scanning near-field optical spectroscopy, and scanning thermal spectroscopy. Particular emphasis was put on low-temperature scanning probe spectroscopy combining high spatial and high spectral resolution. An industrial exhibition allowed us to take a closer look at the latest instrumental developments. The SPS conference has continued to grow in size and scope, which is indicated by the large number of scientific presentations and participants (198). The opening lecture was presented by H. Manoharan from the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, USA, who talked about quantum mirages. Two invited talks by R. Berndt from Kiel University, Germany, and M. Crommie from the University of California Berkeley, USA, focussed on microscopic investigations of the Kondo effect using tunneling spectroscopy. M. Bode from Hamburg University, Germany, reported on spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy studies of magnetic thin films. Four invited talks focussed on the application of scanning probe spectroscopy to semiconducto... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]