Electron microscope
An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. They use electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing them to produce magnified images or electron diffraction patterns. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times smaller than that of visible light, electron microscopes have a much higher resolution of about 0.1 nm, which compares to about 200 nm for light microscopes.[1] Electron microscope may refer to:
Not to be confused with Scanning tunneling microscope.Additional details can be found in the above links. This article contains some general information mainly about transmission electron microscopes.
Materials to be viewed in a transmission electron microscope may require processing to produce a suitable sample. The technique required varies depending on the specimen and the analysis required: