Re: Building electron microscope

On 28 Jun 2006 16:27:44 -0700, mike4ty4@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi.

I heard that building an electron microscope would require "a lot of
money and the resources of a university engineering department". Now, a
few questions, just for curiosity:

1. Would the cost of all the equipment needed to build the thing far
exceed the cost of buying an already-made one (which is around $50,000
- $100,000 last time I checked)?

2. If I had $500,000,000, would getting access to the resources of a
university engineering department be trivial?

Reading the other posts, I see that your definition of electron
microscope is missing from your original posting. There are basically
three types of EMs: TEM, SEM and STEM. The S stands for scanning.
That makes a huge difference in the complexity of the EM. A TEM is
basically like a regular camera that records an image on a negative
(CCD cameras are used now) after electrons pass through the specimen.
Scanning EMs record images of the surface of the specimen as the
electron beam is scanned across the surface/specimen. A STEM scans
the beam through the specimen.

A TEM is not all that complex. The worst areas are the vacuum, lenses
and HV. TEMs normally work at 100KV or higher while SEMs and STEMs
are at 30KV or less.

Which kind did you want to build?


Gary Gaugler, Ph.D.
Microtechnics, Inc.
Granite Bay, CA 95746
916.791.8191
gary@microtechnics dot com
.