In the TV series Dexter there’s an electron microscope in the forensic laboratory. The lab tech keeps looking through an eyepiece adjacent to the microscope. Do electron microscopes even have one?
In the TV series Dexter there’s an electron microscope in the forensic laboratory. The lab tech keeps looking through an eyepiece adjacent to the microscope. Do electron microscopes even have one?
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This is a pretty simple answer, so I hope it will be accepted by the automod.
No, an electron microscope does not. Typically it’s displayed immediately on a monitor next to it, or you could transmit it elsewhere of course.
No. The image is generated by a computer based on the impact the electron beam has on the surface and vice-versa. The beam is directed at one spot at a time, and moves over the sample area. This might (or might not) happen fast enough to create a real-time image, but there is no presentation on an eyepiece, it’s simply on a PC screen.
No, that’s not how Electron microscopes work. They’re hooked up to a computer and you see the output on a monitor.
An eyepiece would imply that you’re optically looking through lenses to see the magnified object, which you just can’t do when you’re not looking at light but electrons.
Some of them do, yes.
In transmission electron microscopes, the electrons ultimately hit a phosphor screen, which converts them in to visible light. Although modern TEMs include a camera which captures digital images of the screen, there is still often a pair of eyepieces for directly viewing the screen. Even if you only care about producing that digital image, it can help with focusing.
They’re labeled “binoculars” in this diagram from Wikipedia. (The “image recording system” is basically a digital camera pointing at the underside of the phosphor screen.)
Edit: Here’s a model they’re still selling today with them on.
The photo here shown in an article from nist shows an electron microscope with an eyepiece and a researcher using it.
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2020/02/simple-retrofit-transforms-ordinary-electron-microscopes-high-speed-atom
I had an (incorrect) explanation for what the binocular eyepiece does here previously. Please instead see BCMM’s explanation
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1mvmbve/comment/n9wmufl/