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Abstract

This chapter presents a memoir on Ernst Ruska (1906–1988), the original designer and constructor of the electron microscope and eventually the leading pacesetter in the design of high-resolution electron microscopes. Under Knoll's supervision, at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, he demonstrated experimentally, for the first time, the basic laws of electron optics. Together, Knoll and Ruska produced in 1931 the crude but effective transmission electron microscope (TEM). In 1933, working alone, Ruska built the first TEM to surpass the light microscope in resolving power. In close collaboration with his fellow postgraduate student Bodo von Borries and his medically qualified brother Helmut, he later produced at Siemens Berlin the first serially manufactured TEM, in a form suitable for immediate laboratory use. This instrument was to revolutionize, among other things, medical diagnostic practice. The rest of Ruska's life was devoted essentially to perfecting the technology inherent in his 1933 prototype TEM. This memoir sets out in broad outline the simple, often idiosyncratic, way that Ruska pursued his early vision of the TEM throughout his life, starting from his undergraduate days and continuing single-mindedly until his death.