His Nobel victory also signaled a change in his research direction. The 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer for their work in electron microscopes and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). This research piqued Polanyi's interest while he was in Sweden for the ceremony. After returning to Toronto, Polanyi and his colleagues looked into the technique and now have four STMs, which they use to picture chemical reactions at the molecular level, rather than using infrared detection and chemiluminescence.