The Difficult Birth of the Scanning Electron Microscope

[@km5405]

have mercy on my sleep schedule

[@Ahnii]

I should really sleep but can't wait to watch this video 😅

[@zamplify]

Kendrick bout to drop again

[@ChanChan-pg4wu]

It is irresistible to click on every asianometry video and dig in every link he shared.

[@goldnutter412]

I KNOW RIGHT HAHAHAHA I WANTED TO SLEEP and load up double twin scan words again let them simmer even more Enter excuse mode this drive copy taking 4hours anyway soooooooooooooo

[@yengsabio5315]

You might need some form of dopamine detox, ahehe!

[@mikeselectricstuff]

The Cambridge Museum of Technology has a exhibition on the history of Cambridge Instruments, including an early SEM

[@honor9lite1337]

😅😅

[@goldnutter412]

Very based ser !

[@AliMaC-nk9vu]

The museum is worth a look if you are interested. The system they have in there is the original microprobe.

[@sparqqling]

Good to see you here mike!

[@Max_Marz]

It’s so cool to see your favorite KZbinrs commenting on your favorite KZbin’s

[@TheGreatAtario]

Once I attended a local college's open house, and one of the things on offer was a web interface to operate an electron microscope, so that the user didn't need (1) to be on-site and (2) lots of technical training. After the demo was over, I approached the presenters and asked if I could play with it a bit. They seemed happy to let me, a total layman, have at it. The subject in the chamber was a housefly. I could pick anyplace on it and keep zooming in and finding more and more detailed structures to marvel at. I swear I could have sat there and poked around on that fly all day. The kicker is that they explained that the fly, in order to show up properly on the scope, had been plated in silver, and that this is standard practice for biological samples. I learned that day that there are such things as silver-plated houseflies in the world.

[@mustardofdoom]

True! Gold, Indium, and Platinum are other common precious metal coatings. Many other coatings are possible, too. If you are curious, look up 'sputter coater' and you can learn more about this versatile sample prep tool.

[@craigslist6988]

The plating is less than 1/1000th the width of a human hair, you wouldn't want to coat it too thickly or you can't see details.. Like dipping something in paint will smooth over a lot of details.

[@d.thorpe2046]

I have a very similar story. Open house @ Laurentian University in Sudbury ~ 1990. Went into a nondescript room and a lab tech says, "You wanna use a scanning electron microscope?" My fly was gold plated and I spent an hour looking at it.

[@stevengill1736]

That's so neat! I wonder if there's such a thing online somewhere?

[@Buckseed]

Yes, I attended San Joaquin Delta College Electron Microscopy Program in 2010. One of the projects was mounting objects on a stub, coating it with carbon and take images of the sample - bees, spiders, ants, fleas, and even pollen. The coating is necessary to the sample would not charge giving a higher resolution image on the SEM. Pretty much SEMs show surface structure and can produce elemental analysis charts with the proper detectors with added software. TEM gives 'internal' structures say for metal dislocation and grain patterns. Good stuff.

[@kenpng5519]

Great video. I work at Zeiss on the SEMs here. Your video made me feel proud that I'm here, continuing the legacy of Oatley et al.

[@matthewvenn]

Another fantastic, well researched story. In the future, when they're smaller and cheaper - I look forward to having my own SEM on my desk!

[@nixie2462]

Same!

[@GMoneyGonz]

You can find some used ones for about $10k, I believe. I've had to look for SEM's tp possibly cannibalize parts off of. That's how I know!

[@FernandoJRodriguezFernandoJRM]

There are desktop SEMs, my university got one delivered last year. It actually is easier to use than the first SEMs I used in grad school. It’s not cheap, about $200,000 USD (can be cheaper, depends on the model and the accessories), but it’s an indispensable tool to assess what our nanotechnology engineering students do on their projects.

[@stevengill1736]

Probably will be an app with a little box you plug into the phone.....sample prep will still be an issue though.... ;*[}

[@Dustycircuit]

I own a Cambridge Instruments Stereoscan 260 as shown in the picture at 19:10. Me and a couple of friends bought it on an auction from Stockholm university. Sadly we only managed to produce a couple of images before it failed. It turned out to be in very poor condition. I am still trying to bring it back to life and replacing all of the electronics with modern components. I have a couple of videos of it on my channel. The SEM is a very interesting collection of engineering marvels, precision electronics and plumbing. Thank you for a great video!

[@StefanReich]

What did it cost?

[@Dustycircuit]

@@StefanReich The auction ended at about 350$ plus a trip from Gothenburg to Stockholm to pick it up. Luckily we could borrow a truck from work.

[@StefanReich]

@@Dustycircuit Oh wow. I was expecting it to cost much more

[@stevengill1736]

Gosh, pretty heavy freight I'd guess....oil diffusion vacuum pump included? Had a neighbor that had similar from UC Berkeley...he was always tinkering, but eventually got some excellent images...

[@Dustycircuit]

@@stevengill1736 Hi, Yes it was project in it self to pick it up. The biggest problem was to get it in to the shop since I did not have a pallet lifter. Lots of hydraulic jacks and sweat :) It has a TMP (turbo molecular pump) but it is pretty old and quite scary to run. The last thing I want to experience is a "turbo sallad". That's when it basically violently explodes. TMP's are expensive so it'll have to wait for wife approval.

[@hanselda]

Cambridge instrument formed later together with Leica as LEO (Leica electron optics) then Zeiss joined. Then LEO was aquired completely by Zeiss and Leica stopped building EM but still producing accessories for sample preparation. Although arch rivalries in optical microscope, Leica and Zeiss still cooperate when providing solutions for EM customers. Currently Zeiss is still producing the SEM in a small town close to Cambridge.

[@FunkySpunkyJunky]

I worked for them back in 1994/95 when under the name of Leica, in a town called Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire. One of my missions there was to modify an SEM to work within a radioactive environment, which I achieved by separating the vacuum chamber from the console with long runs of cables connected through a shielded bulkhead. Took me months, but what a beauty that was. Good times. Good bunch of people.

[@TheOtherSteel]

In nearly fifty years of watching documentaries, I have never seen a hint of the background of scanning electron microscopes. Excellent topic! I now expect a follow-up covering the scanning tunneling microscope. :D

[@AnthonyMuscio]

This struck me as interesting; "The student is judged on the excellence of their work rather than the end result.", this seems to me a good approach to apply to many endeavours.

[@ChanChan-pg4wu]

The whole world seems to be result oriented but excellence could be judged by so many lenses. Result is one of them.

[@DreadDeimos]

This is actually a very insightful observation and I also found it important in this video!

[@herp_derpingson]

I am personally not a big fan of this. This approach disincentivizes efficiency as effort becomes more important than result.

[@FernandoJRodriguezFernandoJRM]

It is mostly true, but not quite. Not getting positive results is not an impediment to being awarded a graduate diploma, but only for grad students who did work hard and understand and explain well what failed and suggest what can be done in the future to achieve success (or at least it used to be that way when I was a grad student).

[@AnthonyMuscio]

@@FernandoJRodriguezFernandoJRM Yes, I did a physics practical that had terrible results, and got a high mark for explaining why that was so and how to improve in future. I am thinking more of doing good science, excellence, but not producing something new, but should in the future based on their skills. One example may be excellence proving something is not reproducible.

[@cogoid]

There are many different varieties of scanning electron microscopes. Some models are quite simple in design. But the units that are used to non-destructively image powered integrated circuits require very special electron optics, such that high resolution is maintained while the energy of the electrons is kept as low as possible, to minimize their influence on the semiconductor devices. This is the opposite to the more typical high resolution microscopes, where the resolution is bought by cranking the energy of the electrons up -- in some TEMs, to millions of electron-volts.

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

Some targets require you to plate on a thin layer of a dense metal like gold or osmium to deliver crisp Images

[@YuTv1408]

SEM, TEM, AFM... all amazing metrology tools.

[@taiwanluthiers]

There's a million different detectors a SEM/TEM have for various purpose. Biology labs are going to have wildly different need than a geological lab or a semiconductor lab.

[@gregmesemondo1401]

This channel is my fountain of geek knowledge. Love it. I could watch your videos all day if I didn’t have to work. Absolutely brilliant.

[@rxbracho]

I worked at the Schlumberger research lab supporting Fairchild and their CAD companies. One of them was Sentry and they produced a debugging station for chip design. Due to my background in visual inspection, I became peripherally involved, but I remember that the model number had the number 5000, perhaps SEM-5000? The year is probably 1985-86. Thank you for a trip down memory lane.

[@mustardofdoom]

Perhaps it was a Hitachi S 5000, or similar? Hitachi models their SEMs in the thousands like that. I am unsure the timing matches with the release of that model though. I have an old Hitachi 2600 in my garage :)

[@rxbracho]

@@mustardofdoom No, it was made by the Schlumberger company, then called Sentry. It had to be because the lab for which I worked supported their semiconductor-related businesses, the biggest of which was Fairchild. Besides Sentry, there was Factron, and a printing company (can't remember the name, it was almost forty years ago). Years later, I did work with Hitachi, near the turn of the century. Thanks for the reply.

[@rydplrs71]

After 20 years in the industry, there isn’t another single tool I used more often in evaluating process development and yield improvement. The SEM, EDX and FIB combination was used on everything. There are other technologies that were completely required for development of one node or another, but the sem enabled every node improvement due to impoverishment in development cycle time. A SEM in fab allows adjustments on the fly to DOE’s and cross sectional SEM images which took time in hours to days were more of a secondary confirmation that changes or improvements were ready to send forward to electrical evaluation in days or months.

[@goldnutter412]

When I had a job I had a few gold coins, bought one on eBay that had a UK auction tag, an 1880/70 OVERDATE "Marsh coin" NGC slabbed it for me, graded it etc.. but it should say Marsh #whatever. The tag literally meant it was the coin in the Marsh THE GOLD SOVEREIGN reference manual.. every single bag mark the same. The odds ? one in OMEGALUL impossible. I put this on the internet before, told the buyer I think.. so long ago oh well :) Then again, I sent them an Australian dollar "STRUCK THRU" oil from a press.. NO DATE ! so they used this mastery of human ingenuity and teamwork to put the right date.

[@goldnutter412]

Great job on not deleting after two edits - sorry, I do these things sometimes type too much too fast before i forget a few key points. The wall of context posts a few times over the last years were.. too hard. Way too much going on without the right analysis of the data in my comments, lost a bunch of hard work.. its okay Maybe Google helping out KZbin ????? Fix the other crap if so lol, #fake #tickers #botnets #fake #advisors #list #goes #on

[@InspectorGadget2014]

Small typo @09:23; Vernon Cosslett's life was from 1908 ~ 1990. Not 1980, that would be a tremendous achievement IMHO.

[@belstar1128]

Vernon Cosslett the 1980s boy genius that tragically died at a young age

[@Asianometry]

My bad. I'll fix that.

[@goldnutter412]

lol had to come looking for you ser top name, fun stupidity cartoons to watch as a kid

[@goldnutter412]

@@belstar1128 some say Beethoven was a genius 🤨

[@InspectorGadget2014]

@@goldnutter412 lol, I hope my handle didn't cause your too much trauma! Go Gadget, go!

[@alexelisabeta]

Vernon Ellis Cosslett, 16 June 1908 - 21 November 1990

[@ethanwaldo1480]

I actually have a Cambridge Stereoscan 200 sitting in a room of my house. Haven't had a chance to hook it back up since I moved, but hope to get it back up and working again.

[@feraudyh]

You are lucky your wife has not thrown it out. Oh, maybe it's too heavy to budge.

[@christopherleubner6633]

If they sit too long they are challenging to get running again. We totally modified an old Joel SEM when I was in college. I did the upgrades to the UHV system, swapped the mercury diffusion pump for a turbomolecular pump. Was both faster and more energy efficient than the diffusion pump. Oh props to Glassslinger for the bearing repair video.❤

[@danpatterson8009]

My last job was at a solar-cell company where I was in charge of laser processes. I was allowed to use the company's SEM to look at the various cuts and blind holes and surface changes that the lasers could make. The SEM was a great diagnostic and just a lot of fun to use.

[@christopherleubner6633]

One of the coolest things we imaged were t4 bacteriophages enhanced with OsO4. They look like little space ships on a sausage.😂

[@FernandoJRodriguezFernandoJRM]

Just when I thought I couldn’t love your channel more, you post this video. The SEM is one of my favorite scientific tools, I used it extensively in grad school to characterize nano materials and composites, and then have kept using it during my career as professor and researcher. I teach characterization methods and even mention a little about the early history of SEM when I teach electron microscopy, but you included details I didn’t know before (and images of early SEM I hadn’t seen). I almost feel bad about nitpicking, but SEM images may look “three-dimensional” but aren’t really they are still 2D, flat representations of 3D objects. Given how much this video covers, a few minor flaws don’t really matter. I commend you for your thorough research. This is one of the best technology related channels in KZbin.

[@kjvanwartberg8439]

As a SEM operator I appreciate this video. Keep up the good work , it's amazing how many different topics you manage to cover with such consistency. And all in a really pleasant style at that.

[@AliMaC-nk9vu]

Having spent most of my working life with Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM's) I really love to see pieces like this, keeping the history alive. Almost everything in our world has been inside an SEM with many technologies only being made possible today through the use of this tech. It was great to part of the 50th anniversary at Cambridge University where I had the privilege to meet Gary Stewart. There are so many amazing people who have been part of this journey and it was great to meet some of them over the years. Thanks again for posting.

[@agranero6]

I remember a Philips ad in Scientific American with an image take n by an SEM that could work at ambient atmospheric pressure, no need for a vacuum. The ad showed an ant carrying a memory chip, the resolution was high enough to see the details on the chip. It may seem not a very high amplification but working at atmospheric pressure was amazing and working fast enough to take an image of a living samples was also amazing. I don't know if it was a commercial product or a proof of concept, but the ad was good enough that I remember it 40 years later. I think I still have the magazine. It was not those colored images you see on Internet it was a grayscale one and the chip was visibly a DRAM (only regular features).

[@GMoneyGonz]

Thank you for this! I currently work at a company that makes both SEMs and TEMs. It's great to know where it all comes from.

[@stevengill1736]

Forgive me if this is a duplicate post... If you think others might be interested, there's a procedure called calcium imaging that coupled with microscopy can show neurons firing in living tissue - zoom out a little and waves of neural activity can be seen in real time....like magic to me... Glad I didn't miss this video, another fascinating romp through the technical universe...cheers.

[@OrtwinS88]

I'm happy to see you approach my work area :). Electron beam lithography coming up soon? In the documentation of our machines we can still find references to Cambridge, Leica, Philips...

[@me0101001000]

One of my former materials science professors whom I had for a characterization class said at the start of class that SEM is the king of all characterization devices. By the end of the class, I was inclined to agree.

[@adamcordingley2572]

My first job was in a chemistry lab operating their SEM. This really brings back memories for me!

[@christopherleubner6633]

The OsO4 contrast is a bit scary, but it works very good. If only they can make something as good but less toxic.

[@juliane__]

My parents knew Manfred von Ardenne and visited his laboratory "auf dem Weißen Hirsch" - "on the white deer" - because of my dads and moms work in electronics and medicine respectively. I guess out of curiosity and maybe for him to work there. Dad worked on pace makers somewhen. Manfred von Ardenne is well known germany wide as one of few east german scientist. I worked on EMP, electron micro probe, and other instruments which inherited the core principles.

[@DreadDeimos]

I love your take on engineering history from a non-commercial vector! Would love to see more of these!

[@flarkel]

I operated and maintained a MarkII Stereoscan for several years. It looked a lot like the one shown at 0:07. The maximum usable magnification was ~20K on a good day. At one point I fitted it with an Apple II computer with 12bit DACs to steer the beam and drive the beam blanker, and used it for e-beam lithography. 0.25µ resolution across a 1mm square field.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Using a SEM for lithography sounds very amusing. Would be a relatively cheap way to prototype ICs or make a custom part. Awsome. ❤

[@andymouse]

Awesome, I have spent a lot of time with TEM and SEM and various others it is truly a wonderful area of science....cheers

[@dandash9870]

I love these type of videos that tell the story behind the creation of a marvellous piece of technology. The brilliant minds that were/are involved in such endeavors don't often get the exposure they deserve so thank you Asianometry for doing the research and making the video.

[@johnstirling6597]

"And some stuff about evolution", GOLD.😁😁

[@mustardofdoom]

And probably the world's best barnacle researcher before or since. He considered writing On the Origin of Species (over 20 years, mind you) to be a big distraction from his passion of studying barnacles, lol. Legendary turbo-nerd. Thank you Charles for your commitment to scientific communication.

[@raygumm]

Wake up babe Asianometry just dropped a new video

[@SynthoidSounds]

Just an interesting side note, as Dr. Ardenne was actually pulled away from his SEM prototype research project to instead focus on Germany's nuclear weapon program at the time. Of course, it was already late in the war, most of the "intelligencia" of the time recognized the war was a disaster, and the nuclear research program was very far from ever reaching a workable design strategy for such a weapon, but that it was even being considered at the time is still chilling to ponder.

[@nickj2508]

@7:30 Von Ardenne's legacy also includes the current production of vacuum coating equipment that is still using electron beam technology for melting and evaporation. Their range of equipment is used production of coated glass and solar cells.

[@MrSquekersUPSB]

My old job bought the newest table top SEM from Phenom (bought by Thermofisher) and it was freaking amazing how easy to use and how compact it was. Shoutout to CeB6.

[@FernandoJRodriguezFernandoJRM]

Those Phenom desktop SEMs are really a wonder. My university bought one a year ago, and indeed it’s easy to use, easier than the larger SEMs I used in grad school and earlier in my work as a professor.

[@thefifthlaw9773]

Electronics need Electron Microscopy - "In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most" (2017).

[@mattheide2775]

The relationship between science and funding is an interesting story in itself. Great video ❤

[@johnkilonzo3344]

That Darwin joke got me

[@SethEvans-r2j]

Density ether sound vibration, electricity magnetism. Well put together. Thanks 👍

[@mustardofdoom]

I work for Thermo Fisher Scientific in their electron microscope division. What an excellent video. Now that the span of history for EM tools is so long, it can be tempting to take for granted the existence of this technically complex research tool. I would be very happy if you extended this historical look to Focused Ion Beam tools. Often paired with a Scanning Electron Microscope as a FIB-SEM. These tools were developed for semiconductors and continue to be highly relevant tools in that domain. So I think it would be very relevant. If you need a contact at Thermo, I could probably find someone in Taiwan.

[@andrewallen9993]

And of course the scanning electron microscope gave us scanning electron beam photo lithography for making integrated circuits.

[@LoCatherine-vx5yj]

‘No images were ever published’

[@ChiefBridgeFuser]

In the mid 90's around Pittsburgh a materials testing company called RJ Lee was developing a smaller, bench top SEM. Eventually, the business was spun out as Aspex. Stories I heard about the development sounded like the development effort almost killed the company before it was completed. Sounds like SEM development was always hard.

[@globulidoktor1733]

I had the honor of playing with one in a lab exercise- such a great invention

[@unreliablenarrator6649]

You should follow-up with FIB, an essential tool to examine microstructure and also fabricate experimental devices. Then you should move on to X-ray CTSCAN.

[@NY_Mountain_Man]

There are days where I wonder why I watch this. Then I remember all these inventions were created by dedicated individuals that helped better the world. Great video.

[@jamesdecross1035]

The Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Society has had some great talks from people who worked on these things. Amazing!

[@rchewy1970]

If you are going to mention Ernst Ruska, please mention Walter Glaser and Otto Muller (Siemens). Ruska hustled their work.

[@ciprianpopa1503]

You skipped a step. The Cambridge sold first to Leica. Zeiss acquired the SEM part from Leica. Zeiss also made TEM, but they renounced, focusing instead on STEM.

[@scottfranco1962]

....and that was only the beginning. Now electron microscopes can be used instead of mask lithography, and allow the creation of ICs beyond the current reach of technology, giving researches the ability to see what lies at the next shrink level. There is a variation of the SEM that allows reading the voltage on a trace in a live IC with the passivation removed, giving a scope style trace of what is going on there. This is hooked up to the layout database allowing the user to select a wire in the design to display. And FIB or focused ion beams came from the same science, allowing companies to cut out and add material to ICs... literally editing an existing design. The possibilities are endless.

[@ne0teric]

At our lab, which we have ~40 various electron microscopes, the SEMs that cut and weld we call "dual beams" (welding and milling). It's pretty cool to watch a tiny part of a chip be cut out, sliced, then welded onto a 'grid' for the TEM to then image. That or see them "mill" an picture/image onto a chip that nobody will ever see.

[@AaronSlamovich]

Can you make a video about the MRI, how it evolved into the fMRI, and how it revolutionalized medical imaging and research?

[@vinnieluther6589]

5:05 philo Farnsworth was the first to demonstrate a fully electronic tv system.

[@SSNewberry]

My grandfather worked on one at Washington University prior to the war.

[@JackClayton123]

Very interesting. I wasn’t aware of the history in its development.

[@lbochtler]

We have a functional stereoscan s4-10 at the museum of electron microscopy in nurnberg germany. I could have shot B roll of its opprration for this video, had we been contacted. Sadly, since the museuk is still very new its not a surprising result. Just thought id let you know. We have many more operational historic microscopes on display and in storage awaiting the time when they may once again opperate.

[@CalgarGTX]

These days they have computer assisted models, that you can use to slice off samples and zoom in to nanometer scale in (almost) real time. I saw one used on der8auer channel, who is let's say a computer overclock enthusiast, and he was using it to dissect a CPU to show the internal layers up to the transistors themselves, really amazing the level of control we have reached for these kind of tools these days.

[@alexhubble]

I'm always pleased when they knight someone worth knighting, not some party hack...

[@donaldaxel]

Vernon Ellis Cosslett, 1908 - 1990. I think there is another "typo" when he says that Knoll's scope did 10x - which is less than a good lupe.

[@jansenart0]

Fantastic topic suggestion! Take more ideas from industry professionals!

[@jozek3820]

i watch your videos when i cannot sleep

[@mikemurphy8714]

Philo Farnsworth invented the T.V.

[@finophile]

Thanks for this (and so many other good) videos

[@jamieoglethorpe]

Good show!. I expeted a programme about the Tunneling Electron Microscope. That also deserves a video.

[@brodriguez11000]

I imagine giving birth to that behemoth would be difficult. 🙂

[@ventusprime]

One of my teacher was on the team , And they can so interesting engineering storys, Good video

[@RiceProfELEC571]

At 4:39 your assumption is incorrect, the scientific community did not want Knoll awarded a Nobel prize thus the long break between its invention and Ruska eventually splitting it with the inventors of tunneling microscopy. In a similar manner, many would think that Erwin Muller, inventor of field electron and field ion microscopy, would have won a Nobel prize but again he was controversial enough that the scientific community would prevent it.

[@LegacyUser]

A fascinating history of a fascinating instrument.

[@robertduckham3377]

Great video. A while ago I watched the taping rebellion video. In it you said you were going to make a second video on that subject. I wondered when that would be?

[@MeppyMan]

Makes you wonder what other amazing tech we might have had if not for experiments and projects that died in the labs of universities and research institutes over the years.

[@DingooEgret]

I work with this equipment and still don’t know how they work.

[@mustardofdoom]

Commercial EM sellers provide pretty straightforward explanations on their websites now. For instance Thermo Fisher Scientific hosts a Cryo-EM university that is a free online series of courses on the topic. Some parts are specific to biological imaging under cryogenic conditions, but it starts with general background material.

[@AtomicKeeg]

9:25 thats one old looking ten year old. Noticed more errors. I would rush less.

[@stefanschneider3681]

Beautiful episode! Thx!

[@SB-qm5wg]

Another great story. Thank you.

[@Petriiik]

Next video about Laser Isotope Separation?

[@santaclaus8384]

Once again a wonderful story and great vid.

[@aleratz]

Vernon Cosslet birth date is 1908 9:32

[@gecho194]

19:59 Brown Boveri, is the BB in ABB which was formed by a merger with a Swedish company with a much longer name starting with an A.

[@larrykent196]

Thank you, a very interesting understanding of the who's who bringing this technology to the world, the tilt of the beam complex to do I may surmise, but sometimes out of the box thinking goes a long way. Cheers!

[@leopardtiger1022]

I used SEM of JEOL for my doctorate work in 1969 to 71 at RWTH Aachen.

[@jaimeortega4940]

Good topic!

[@mancroft]

Superb as usual. Thank you.

[@testboga5991]

A beautiful video! Thank you!

[@taiwanluthiers]

I've operated a SEM while working for a professor at UT Austin. They have this electron microprobe thing which uses a SEM as well as the right detectors to scan the elemental properties of a sample. This technique works better for heavier elements, but the idea is that when an electron beam hits something, it releases radiation. The radiation it releases tells you what it is as different elements release different radiations. I was working on probing various standards which is put into a database so that an unknown sample can be established. Operating it isn't too hard but there's huge potential to do serious (and expensive) damage to the instrument as it has zero safeguards. You can crash the objective into the sample for example (as your actual WD isn't known until you actually focus it, and sometimes that WD can be quite small, like less than 1mm). You must also operate the thing following a set of instructions in very specific order, or damage will result. Some instruments have detectors that require liquid nitrogen, I'm not sure exactly what they're for (it was above my pay grade). They also have SEM that can view living things. Normally sample must be coated with conductive medium, usually gold or carbon. However when using the instrument in backscatter (BES) mode, you don't always have to do this.

[@mustardofdoom]

Older SEMs use liquid nitrogen to cool the sensor on an EDS (Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy). To obtain the right conductivity on the detector, it has to be kept very cold. Modern tools typically use a different detector type (like silicon drift detector) with Peltier cooling, so no liquid nitrogen is involved. But you can still have systems that use LN2 for cooling the sample down. That's still very common in biology use cases like single particle analysis to discover protein structure.

[@analogdesigner-Jay]

Superbly done!

[@russellspear4911]

Consider visiting the history of HVTMs particularly JEOLs 3 MV behemoths technology too soon and their evolution.

[@lbochtler]

Im unaware jeol ever built a 3MV unit, only hitachi did to my knolwledge. There where custom built ones at various institutes.

[@MannyEspinola-q4t]

Thank you for this video

[@LawatheMEid]

Really special videos, but most of times I make the playback speed 1.25, less times 1.5. Thanks.

[@stefanschneider3681]

Thanks!

[@Taygetea]

I'm starting to wonder if you're sponsored by Zeiss

[@BillyLapTop]

Anyone here build a scanning electron microscope based upon an Scientific American article from around 40 years ago? It was an amazing article.

[@siddyray3361]

I have always Wondered about SEM TEM. THANK YOU. P.S. I have a P.G in Zoology.

[@belstar1128]

i wish i could own an electron microscope but it seems like they are just as big and expensive as in the 1950s.

[@lbochtler]

Dont forgot the various sample preperation equipment needed. Its expensive in all ways.

[@belstar1128]

@@lbochtler yea even with my cheap traditional microscope it's easy at lower magnification. but at the highest settings everything has to be perfect or it is just a blur

[@lbochtler]

@@belstar1128 with electron microscopes, you also have problems of image distortion and odd behavior due to charge buildup in the column and or sample. so its even worse in some respects. with enough money and diligent work all these problems can be solved however. Though its not as easy for a Hobbyist. it can be done however, just not all that cheaply.

[@lbochtler]

@@belstar1128 i should also add, that i work for and am working to build the first proper electron microscopy museum, located in Nurnberg Germany, we plan to have a citizen scientist lab there, where anyone who is interested and can pay the materials and machine time, can use both a scanning and a transmission electron microscope by themselves. If other methods other then those available on the 2 citizen microscopes are needed, then the ones in the main exhibit or the research lab can be used under supervision or directly by museum staff. Basically, the cost of ownership is born by the museum, and only the quite low cost of use is to be payed for by the user. Examples of cost (not the final numbers, but internal numbers) is, around 5 to 10 euros per hour for running the microscope itself, and between a few euros and a few dozen euros per sample preparation, depending on technique. The maintenance and consumable items like the cathodes are expensive on their own, but spread over time and many users, not that much anymore. The maintenance itself is done by the museum staff, so lower cost then having the OEM do it. I hope that people like you would be interested in this concept. We also plan on having 2 remote controlled machines where people world wide can send in samples and look at them via online control. sample prep would be done by either the sender, or museum staff.

[@mustardofdoom]

Depending on where you live, you may be able to get one at auction. The analog scopes are especially cheap. Usually $500-5000. You then have to get it delivered and set it up in a stable environment. Getting it up and running and maintaining it is a different story. I bought an SEM at auction for ~2K including all expenses. Not yet functional, but I tinker with it every now and then. You can also rent a benchtop SEM for ~3-5K/day. I know a couple of people who do that as a professional service. The advantage there is you don't have to deal with it afterwards and it should be guaranteed to work during your contract.

[@LetsAllLoveLain_]

darwin?????????

[@oraz.]

The gun and the detector are completely collinear?

[@mustardofdoom]

In standard TEM set-up, yes. But it's just for convenience. with strong enough push-pull from electromagnetic fields, you could put the detector conceivably just about anywhere. Back-scatter detectors and Everhart-Thorley detectors (two most common in SEM) are above the sample, for instance. DPC imaging in TEM has detectors above and/or below the sample. There's variation depending on the desired application.

[@srdau2]

You have 1980-1990 in the caption for Vernon Cosslett, rather than 1908-1990.

[@tigertiger1699]

What the hell is that on the well wagon.., I thought might be an armature.., but looks like turbine????

[@MichaelOfRohan]

Well technically any and all images are 2d. If its not an image, its an object

[@cheaterman49]

Vernon Cosslett, oldest looking and most accomplished 10 year old ever 😁

[@cheaterman49]

Typo already in description, Jon is very professional as usual 🙂

[@sunitadwarka347]

I have watched the Google students school scientist program two yearsback . One very young boy of 20 year is doing research on this topic. He is claiming different different things. Even we can detect posion in food. Jay bharat.