Scanning Electron Microscope - History

History

An account of the early history of SEM has been presented by McMullan. Although Max Knoll produced a photo with a 50 mm object-field-width showing channeling contrast by the use of an electron beam scanner, it was Manfred von Ardenne who in 1937 invented a true microscope with high magnification by scanning a very small raster with a demagnified and finely focused electron beam. Ardenne applied the scanning principle not only to achieve magnification but also to purposefully eliminate the chromatic aberration otherwise inherent in the electron microscope. He further discussed the various detection modes, possibilities and theory of SEM, together with the construction of the first high magnification instrument of a SEM. Further work was reported by Zworykin's group, followed by the Cambridge groups in the 1950s and early 1960s headed by Charles Oatley, all of which finally led to the marketing of the first commercial instrument by Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company as the "Stereoscan" in 1965 (delivered to DuPont).

Read more about this topic:  Scanning Electron Microscope

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.
    Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)

    Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)