An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a higher resolving power than light microscopes and can reveal the structure of smaller objects. A scanning transmission electron microscope has achieved better than 50 pm resolution in annular dark-field imaging mode and magnifications of up to about 10,000,000× whereas most light microscopes are limited by diffraction to about 200 nm resolution and useful magnifications below 2000×.
Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye. There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical, electron, and scanning probe microscopy, along with the emerging field of X-ray microscopy.
A microscope is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisible to the eye unless aided by a microscope.
The microscopic scale is the scale of objects and events smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye, requiring a lens or microscope to see them clearly. In physics, the microscopic scale is sometimes regarded as the scale between the macroscopic scale and the quantum scale. Microscopic units and measurements are used to classify and describe very small objects. One common microscopic length scale unit is the micrometre, which is one millionth of a metre.
Walter Cox McCrone Jr. was an American chemist who worked extensively on applications of polarized light microscopy and is sometimes characterized as the "father of modern microscopy". He was also an expert in electron microscopy, crystallography, ultra-microanalysis, and particle identification. In 1960 he founded the McCrone Research Institute, a non-profit educational and research organization for microscopy based in Chicago.
An electron microprobe (EMP), also known as an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) or electron micro probe analyzer (EMPA), is an analytical tool used to non-destructively determine the chemical composition of small volumes of solid materials. It works similarly to a scanning electron microscope: the sample is bombarded with an electron beam, emitting x-rays at wavelengths characteristic to the elements being analyzed. This enables the abundances of elements present within small sample volumes to be determined, when a conventional accelerating voltage of 15-20 kV is used. The concentrations of elements from lithium to plutonium may be measured at levels as low as 100 parts per million (ppm), material dependent, although with care, levels below 10 ppm are possible. The ability to quantify lithium by EPMA became a reality in 2008.
David John Hugh Cockayne FRS FInstP was Professor in the physical examination of materials in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford and professorial fellow at Linacre College from 2000 to 2009. He was the president of the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy from 2003 till 2007, then vice-president 2007 to 2010.
Immunolabeling is a biochemical process that enables the detection and localization of an antigen to a particular site within a cell, tissue, or organ. Antigens are organic molecules, usually proteins, capable of binding to an antibody. These antigens can be visualized using a combination of antigen-specific antibody as well as a means of detection, called a tag, that is covalently linked to the antibody. If the immunolabeling process is meant to reveal information about a cell or its substructures, the process is called immunocytochemistry. Immunolabeling of larger structures is called immunohistochemistry.
Nestor J. Zaluzec is an American scientist and inventor who works at Argonne National Laboratory. He invented and patented the Scanning Confocal Electron Microscope. and the π Steradian Transmission X-ray Detector for Electron-Optical Beam Lines and Microscopes.
Aspex Corporation, founded in 1992, is a supplier of electron microscopy tools to researchers, developers and manufacturers working on Process control through automated scanning electron microscope and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.
The optical properties of all liquid and solid materials change as a function of the wavelength of light used to measure them. This change as a function of wavelength is called the dispersion of the optical properties. The graph created by plotting the optical property of interest by the wavelength at which it is measured is called a dispersion curve.
Vernon Ellis Cosslett, FRS was a British microscopist.
Skip Palenik is an American analytical microscopist, forensic scientist, lecturer, and author. He is most famous for providing trace evidence analysis and forensic microscopy for many high-profile cases including the Oklahoma City Bombing, Unabomber investigation, Hillside Strangler investigation and the JonBenet Ramsey case, and for his contributions to books and television programs including TruTV's Forensic Files.
Ondrej L. Krivanek is a Czech/British physicist resident in the United States, and a leading developer of electron-optical instrumentation. He won the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2020 for his substantial innovations in atomic resolution electron microscopy.
The American Microscopical Society (AMS) is a society of biologists dedicated to promoting the use of microscopy.
Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate. He is regarded as the founder of single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. He also made significant contributions to structure and function of the ribosome from bacteria and eukaryotes.
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye.
Miaofang Chi is a distinguished scientist at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences in Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her primary research interests are understanding interfacial charge transfer and mass transport behavior in energy and quantum materials and systems by advancing and employing novel electron microscopy techniques, such as in situ and cryogenic scanning transmission electron microscopy. She was awarded the 2016 Microscopy Society of America Burton Medal and the 2019 Microanalysis Society Kurt Heinrich Award. She was named to Clarivate’s list of Highly Cited Researchers in 2018 and 2020.
SEM-XRF is an established technical term for adding a X-ray generator to a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Technological progress in the fields of small-spot low-power X-ray tubes and of polycapillary X-ray optics has enabled the development of compact micro-focus X-ray sources that can be attached to a SEM equipped for energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.
Peter David Nellist, is a British physicist and materials scientist, currently a professor in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. He is noted for pioneering new techniques in high-resolution electron microscopy.
