Microscopes can be divided into two general classes: those that illuminate the sample with a beam, and those that use a physical scanning probe. Scanning probe microscopies raster a small probe across the surface of a sample and monitor the interaction of the probe with the sample. The resolution of scanning probe microscopies is set by the size of the interaction region between the probe and the sample, which can be sufficiently small to allow atomic resolution. Using a physical tip (e.g. AFM or STM) does have some disadvantages though including a reasonably small imaging area and difficulty in observing structures with a large height variation over a small lateral distance.