Do You Know Who Invented The Electron Microscope?
Today whenever we use an electron microscope, we somehow pay a tribute to those great men who were involved in the invention and development of the modern electron microscope. Today's generation may not have an idea about who invented the electron microscope. But, for those interested in knowing about it, James Hillier was the inventor of the electron microscope and the invention of the electron microscope was first done in 1937.
On 22nd August, 1915, James Hillier was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Initially, his main area of concern was arts, and he wanted to be an artist, but because of his excellence in Maths and Physics, he got a scholarship to the University of Toronto.
In 1936, he married Florence Marjory Bell. They had two sons, In 1937 he did B.A. in Maths and Physics and continued with his graduation at the University of Toronto. He and his fellow student, Albert Prebus, set-up a microscopic model that could enlarge up to 7,000 times. The model passed a ray of electrons, in place of a ray of light, via a sample. The ray would be centered on a photographic sheet. Both of them proved a theory suggested by a German scientist which said that the electron microscope would have more resolution as compared to that of a light microscope. This assumption is due to the fact that the wavelength of electrons is less than that of light, so as to generate better magnification and greater focus depth.
He also made way for the invention of the two main variants of the electron microscope, that is, the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The TEM is the genuine form of electron microscopy, which involves a high voltage electron ray. While in the case of the SEM, the electrons in the primary beam are transmitted through the sample, and the images are produced by detecting secondary electrons emitted from the surface due to excitation by the primary electron beam. He worked with the Radio Corporation of America, New Jersey, with a group to build the company's first ever commercial electron microscope. He continued working on the microscope for about ten years, improving its application and resolving power, and made the electron microscope a standard equipment in major research centers all over the world. Besides working on the electron microscope, he also carried out major developments in the medicine and biology area, which included the discovery of the theory of the stigmator meant to rectify astigmatism of electron microscope objective lenses. He was a great man who dedicated all his life, doing new things for the advancement in the field of science and technology, and for you answered the most important question, that who invented the electron microscope. He died on 15th January, 2007 in Princeton, New Jersey.
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