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History of Electron Microscopy
The Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) gave a tour a while ago for several of the campus librarians who deal specifically with various science departments. In the course of the tour, references were made to the historical scene around the time of the development of the first electron microscopes, and to Ernst Ruska and the first electron microscopes.
At the end of the tour, one of the librarians asked if we would be interested in having them hunt down some of the primary references for the development of the instruments and other historical documents related to this. We were thrilled at the offer, and the following lists a number of the documents that they were able to find (and some others that we have since hunted down on our own).
- A.F. Kracklauer's English translation of Recherches sur la Théorie des Quanta (1925) - On the Theory of Quanta
This work from de Broglie is one of the first places, if not the very first, where the wave nature of electrons is described.
Interestingly enough, according to Ernst Ruska's Nobel speech in 1986, Ruska did not know of de Broglie's "material wave" theory until the summer of 1931, after the first electron microscope had been constructed!
- Das Elektronenmikroskop (1932) - The Electron Microscope
- Über Fortschritte im Bau und in der Leistung des magnetischen Elektronenmikroskops (1934) - On Progress in the Construction and Performance of the Magnetic Electron Microscope
- Ein Übermikroskop für Forschungsinstitute (1939) - A Super Microscope for Research Institutes
- Eigenschaften der übermikroskopischen Abbildung (1939) - Characteristics of the Super Microscope Image
- Die Bedeutung der Übermikroskopie für die Virusforsehung (1939) - The Importance of Electron Microcopy for the Virus Research
- Der Einfluß von Elektroneninterferenzen auf die Abbildung von Kristallen im Übermikroskop (1940) - The Effect of Electron Interferences on the Image of Crystals in the Super Microscope
- Der Einfluß der Strahlspannung auf das übermikroskopische Bild (1940) - The Influence of Beam Voltage on the Microscopic Image
- Nobel Lecture (1986) The Development of the Electron Microscope and Electron Microscopy