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History of Electron Microscopy at the Institute of Scientific Instruments
Müllerová, Ilona
The development of the first transmission electron microscope (EM) at the Institute of Scientific Instruments (ISI) was completed in 1951. In 1954 a functional model of a desktop EM (the Tesla BS 242) was built and it won the Gold Medal at EXPO 1958. Over 1000 of these instruments were produced over a period of 20 years and exported to 20 countries. Unique transmission, emission and scanning EMs were developed and built during the 1960s. At the same time, the issues with high voltage sources, vacuum (and subsequently ultrahigh vacuum) and with the analysis of residual gases were resolved. In 1962, the first electron interference experiments in the world were carried out at ISI. Non-conventional forms of EM were also developed in the 1970s, e.g. interference shadow EM, Lorentz and tunneling EM, emission microscopy, as well as low energy electron diffraction [1]. Since 1973 the finite element method has been exploited for the computation of electrostatic and magnetic lenses. The ultrahigh vacuum scanning EM with cold field emission gun and an Auger spectrometer was fully developed and built at ISI in 1976, and the electron beam writer with a shaped beam and field emission gun in 1985. The development of new scintillation and cathodoluminescent screens began in the 1970s and our single crystal Yttrium Aluminium Garnet detector significantly improved detection systems all over the world. Low- and very-low-energy scanning EM was introduced to the world in 1990 as a unique technique. Today, it can achieve resolution as low as 4.5 nm at the incident electron energy of 20 eV.
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