The facility of scanning probe microscopy techniques to interact with and manipulate objects with sub‐angstrom precision has made these the basic tools for nanotechnology. However, existing methods are very slow and restrict the range of possible applications. In this paper we present a novel approach that increases the rate at which experiments at the nanometre length scale can be performed by approximately 10,000 times. We have developed a micro scanner that utilises its own internal mechanical resonance to address a surface with nanometre resolution and is capable of imaging at over 100 frames/sec, the fastest scanning probe microscope to‐date. © 2003 American Institute of Physics