The electron pairs in s-wave superconductivity is stabilized by the phonon-mediated attractive Coulomb interactions. When non-superconducting materials (normal metal) are placed next to an s-wave superconductor, the non-superconducting materials turn into a superconductor within the length scale of superconducting coherent length. This is known as a superconducting proximity effect. In this talk. I will report several cases of materials grown on Pb(111) substrate and show the experimental realization of the superconducting proximity effect using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). I will then discuss how to utilize the Pb superconductivity for probing the novel quantum states of the overgrown materials on Pb(111).