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electron microscope

A magnifying system capable of showing the interior or surface of a microscopic object by means of directed electron beams

EntityQ132560

Also known as electronmicroscope

Subclass of: microscope

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of "illumination". It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing it to produce magnified images or electron diffraction patterns. As the wavelength of an electron can be more than 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. Electron microscope may refer to:Transmission electron microscope (TEM) where swift electrons go through a thin sample Scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) which is similar to TEM with a scanned electron probe Scanning electron microscope (SEM) which is similar to STEM, but with thick samples Electron microprobe similar to a SEM, but more for chemical analysis Low-energy electron microscope (LEEM), used to image surfaces Photoemission electron microscope (PEEM) which is similar to LEEM using electrons emitted from surfaces by photons

Overview

All data

52 statements · 17% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Discovered: 1931
Discovered by: Ernst Ruska discovered: 1931
Max Knoll discovered: 1931
Uses: cathode ray

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38 identifiers linking electron microscope across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

17%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 2, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). electron microscope (Q132560). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/electron-microscope-Q132560