DIY Scanning Electron Microscope - Operation procedure
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- After getting back from Maker Faire (which is always a hugely enjoyable and inspiring event), I thought that my microscope might need some repairs. As it turned out, I only had to change the filament and tighten some screws that came loose during the trip back from the Faire. The microscope works just as well as it ever has -- I didn't even need to move my alignment magnets. I made this video to show everyone what using it is really like.
Also, if you haven't been able to attend Maker Faire yet, it really is as amazing and epic as you have heard. The intelligent and inspiring people who make it happen are a large part of the motivation that I had to build and display this microscope. In turn, I hope my project inspires others to create things and share their ideas with everyone. There's no better way to have fun and celebrate accomplishment at the same time!
Every video I watch you make a piece of scientific equipment that I used to think was only attainable by a university or big business. You will inspire the next generation to make their own access to equipment. With the right tools and an open mind what will be possible?
Keep on inspiring!
Absolutely. I feel like people, myself included, often have this mindset of "well I could do this thing if I had this epic piece of equipment to do it with!" but rarely think "is it feasible to try and create said equipment, or otherwise find a creative solution?".
Hopefully these videos convince people to not make excuses for why they can't do something.
As the guy in the "Apollo 13" movie said: "You sir, are a steely-eyed missile-man!".
That is the most incredible and excellent homemade-from-scratch project I have ever seen!
Respect.
Hahaha, just watched that like 10 days ago. I had to youtube it to see what they meant, the original story was pretty awesome too
Right on, Justin...... definitely awesome :-)
Doing this kind of stuff was my dream as a kid. Now I'm in university and I see that everything is magnitudes more complicated than I thought.. and I just can't handle all the science :D
Electrical engineering?
not as difficult as it is expensive. If you don't have a garage full all deep vacuum pumps and 40kV power supplies and other electronics, buying all that stuff and having a place to experiment on it is kinda expensive and not even do easy to find. Idk where i can find 40kV power supply or a filament for that electron beam
This is brilliant. Your willingness to go for it and not think that it can't be done is inspiring.
I look forward to seeing your homebuilt SEM that will do 100,000x, and have automatic control with a PC interface for desired zoom factor.
omg I think this is the first “see ya next time, bye”!
And the next one is the first “see ya next time, byyye” :)
And so the legacy began xD
2011 Ben: "Bye"
2020 Ben: "Bæ"
That's absolutely awesome!
I'm still surprised how much High quality Content is (still) available on TH-cam!
i want to be your neighbor. sitting everyday in your garage, watching you fiddeling around. learning a whole bunch.
Wow I'm impressed. Go science!
i'm glad you picked up a book on electron acceleration and not one on fission, all the best things were built in sheds and without people like you we'd all still be in caves.
You are one heck of an engineer! Really love your work on that SEM...!
You actually made this topic quite easy to understand!
Thanks again:D
This is so cool. "eh I think I'll build a scanning electron microscope. No big deal". I love this guy!
This really is by far the most amazing/coolest thing I've seen anyone create individually. Imagine the research, time, $$$$$, and theory that went into this. A good solid foundation in physics or electronic engineering would be a good start I suppose. Bravo to you sir!
Question....are we seeing screen roll because of a frequency mismatch between the scope and camera? I would assume your scope is a still image.
Thanks! CRT electron guns are optimized for producing a fairly large spot size. The SEM requires a much smaller spot, and this changes the way the gun geometry is setup. Another problem is that CRT guns are coated with a metal oxide to enhance electron emission. However, venting the tube to atmosphere will cause the coating to become "oxygen poisoned", and the emission characteristics will be hurt significantly. I haven't done the experiment to determine how significantly, but it's severe.
Very neat!
Only thing I would add is a shatter shield for the bell jar. A professor was telling me about one imploding and putting glass into a car door!
Not too often. The vacuum system is very simple, and has only one valve so there isn't much to go wrong. I did have a problem with insulators in the chamber becoming charged, then suddenly discharging and causing problems with electronics.
The images keep looking better and better. I look forward to seeing more videos and construction details.
This is the absolute best DIY science on youtube. Keep up the good work. We are rooting for you.
I would love to make one of these!
Destroying a filament is pretty difficult. A lot of air would have to leak in to cause the tungsten to actually burn through. I don't think I ever destroyed one. However, I had plenty of arcs in the chamber, and changed my emission current gauge twice since it would blow out after a major arc discharge.
'm severely impressed. You have an amazing collection of vids. Thanks for your inspiring work!
Yes, but the problem is that you might have to submerge the specimen in an aqueous solution for silver coating, and this would saturate the insect with water, which you'll have to fully remove before inspecting with the SEM. However supercritical drying is often used for specimen preparation, and it's possible the extra water will not be much of a problem.
This guy is casually a level 100 genius
This microscope sometimes arcs, that's just the way it is ....
Best. Sentence. Ever.
This is really amazing.
That is so amazing. Kudos.
Very much reminds me of the 1971 movie the andromeda strain...!
No, the problem is that chamber materials outgas and also release adsorbed molecules (like water), which must be pumped away or else the vacuum will get worse over time.
Excellent work!! How much did this apparatus cost to build? I am a physics undergrad and I am wondering about building this for my senior project. It is probably not feasible since I would only have like three months. Still a really cool setup!!!
Can't imagine what you with Cody's Lab can rig together, you look like close relatives
Awesome Report Thank-you!
100% thought by the thumbnail for this video that you'd made a real-life pip boy
Ok, I am convinced, you are a true mad scientist! :) Haha really that is freakin' awesome! That's gotta be a lot of work to make and set up, but you can bring over your friends and ask them whether or not they have a scanning electron microscope in *their* workshop! Seriously though, this is very impressive! Job well done.
please keep this coming
Well atleast you're the first one to call me an idiot without having horrible grammar.
Ohh and i'm not an idiot.
Amazing project.
Is possible use a CCD/CMOS sensor instead a photomultiplier (maybe coating a CCD/CMOS matrix with phosphorous or ZnS film)?
Thank you for share this.
Best Regards
Amazing work! Wouldn't have thought, that it is possible to build one working electron microscope without having access to a professional laboratory.
I think the most sensitive thing to handle is the vacuum technology, if one of the pumps goes damaged your filament will burn. How often did that happen in the engineering process?
THIS GUY!!!
🐐
Awesome, well done!
That is very cool. Nice job.
Awesome!
Incredible work!
i believe that the shakiness of the image can be reduced if the microscope itself is physically separated for the vacuum pumps - vibration of the pumps moves the sample and the image gets shaky
you probably watched it but i found a lot about electron microscopes in this video series
Garage tour? seriously id like to see what you have in there.
Truly impressive work! You seem to know alot about what you are doing;)
really impressive, nice work!
Absolutely amazing!
Really nice!
Shouldn't you be worried about X-rays emitted by electrons slamming into your sample? Those could be a health hazard...
Michele Zaffalon soft X-Rays start to radiate at about 15kV, he is only handling with voltages at about 4.5kV, so no worry here :)
This is truly amazing.
you're so much inspiring!
Thats so cool, i need one...
Very impressive Sir..Are you a scientist? Really, i'm so curious about your SEM. My fist handmade microscope is just a simple wood LM, and sadly, it didn't work as much...But yours are great!!
Dude, you rules!
ya have inspired me to share what I no would love to chat some time keep up the good work!!
This machine rocks !!!
BTW: Please help jeriellsworth fix the mass spectrometer.
Hope you can improve your machine soon and upload a video soon. Terrific job mister.
Very cool
You're right. I probably should.
I had a geekgasum!!! Bes homemade instrument i have seen!
Two words: Amazing work
;)
Most interesting again. Any idea what the depth of field might be? I guess if you had a gold sprayed bug it could interesting and presume focus scale would enable you to cover full depth. I think you will have to try a fruit fly sometime!!!
If the secondary electrons are just getting attracted to a detector, which I assume just outputs the brightness, how does it display a 3D image (where you can see the mesh is woven)? How do you see that one wire is above another? I would have assumed the result would have been far more flat/binary with a signal whenever there were any secondary electrons and nothing where there were none. It's not even that depth = brightness, the images appear to be 3D with an external light source picking up highlights. What should I be googling to understand this? Any descriptions I've found online just explain the process as you did (electrons produced > focused > secondary produced > detected > displayed)
Same question. I presume the brightness of the particular point depends on the angle between surface normal and the the beam of electrons falling upon it. In this case it's can be explained why the object looks like it's being illuminated by some light (with shades and half-tones).
cool as all hell !
Hey Ben love your channel!
The scanning Electron Microscope project is an awesome achievement! I was wondering if you were to take the Electron gun from the old cathode ray tube and used this to produce the electron beam and use additional accelerating section to finish off that section instead of building all of the other pieces to simplify construction etc. Just an idea that came across while watching the video etc. Keep up the great work!
George
In comparison to YOU, MacGyver is a little poop :O .
Did you shape the focus lens or other magnetic lenses in a specific way?
you mentioned in one video that a metal target was necessary. How do you make a picture of an ant or other non-metal target?
I would suggest to swap the diffusion pump to a turbo molecular pump. that would make the setup much smaller ..
Yi You and more expensive, not to mention the fact that turbo pumps are very sensitive to dirt or any foreign object
Der Keksinator think about mass spec. meanwhile, turbos are not terribly expensive.
very good job!!
that is impressive!
what would you have to do to multiply the magnification down to a nano scale ???
I guess You should generate & be able to manipulate million Volts!
You have to increase the exposure time(as smaller samples tend to be a little sensitive to very high voltages) and get more precise equipment to get a tighter electron beam as well as precise scanning to get a clear image.
I see, it will work if you are able to dry it. I just stumbled upon yor videos and you are truly inspiring! Kids need this. Thumbs up
I want more !
Have you ever thought of upgrading to a turbomolecular pump? Surplus ones can be had for around $2-3K with the controller.
this is insane... I'm watching this in 2017... did you improved it already? Regards
You're really a special person man ! :-)
Do you suppose the slight waviness could be caused by the phase shift or delay in the power for the directing plates and the signal going to the oscilloscope? In which case just a simple capacitor/inductor circuit could solve or minimize the problem.
This is very neat. What would you have to do to get an image of bacteria or a virus with the microscope?
I wish I had a chance to chat with you a bit more at maker faire.
Thanks for showing us this. If this setup works kind of like a vacuum tube, wouldn't you want to turn on the filament before you turn on the high voltage?
I'd be happy to answer specific questions about the SEM build. I'm easy to find on the internet. Send me a message.
Pls try a bio sample. Good job.
@xXdenhartXx From my understanding, bio-material is difficult to image, at least for back-scatter imaging, because you have to coat the material with a metallic coating.
have you ever build a laser pumped diode and tried to reproduced or play with light absorption and gases? , I really would like to build one...
Did you have an idea to put the photodetector outside the vacuum chamber?
it's alive, it's alive. :D
I wasn't implying I could afford 1 nor built 1 and I don't have the knowledge neither, don't take it so hard, but for the nature of the adjustments you did I think they could be calibrated in a table and a programmer could create the software that will tell you what it needs to be adjusted or do it itself with electro-mechanic servos coupled to the knobs for more automated functioning, I was just giving my 2 cents contribution to improve it and it sucked because you have to be an expert on it.
Interesting, thanks for showing it, but that thing sucks, all those adjustments I figure they could be put into software and autmated their balancing and adjustments from a PC for the desired zoom factor, which BTW wasn't much for the title of electronic microscope, I gross calculate it was 500:1? I expected 100,000:1 or so, anyway very intersting and complicated.
Have you considered making a scanning tunneling microscope?
Once you get to the necessary vacuum, can't you just seal it rather than having to leave the diffusion pump running?
What do the spark plugs do?
+The Federal Farmer as far as I know, those are only to ensure that high voltage can enter the vacuum without any leaks.
Well, I want a 1kW Amplifier, the 460 is almost perfect because of the high ratings for voltage, amps and power dissipation. But I need at least 10 or more, to get that power into 8 Ohms (It's still more simple than for 4 ohms, because of current limitation per output device). You know what I mean. To expensive for me, only 330€ per month. :(
Have you tried refinements? Like a control system? do you quantify the secondary emission due to the impact of the electron gun?
What kind of signals coming out of your sem, many years ago I wrote a computer program for the Phillips SEM 501 and other sems to connect with a computer.
That was a nice comeback Krasnow. Some people just don't get physics very well and think everything can be done on there phone or a computer of some kind with a few 'simple' programs. Unless your budget is in the trillions, this ain't gonna happen! I have plans to build a similar microscope. I am really interested in corresponding with you on how I am going to it. I have many years experience in electronics, but not near the budget that it seems you do. Contact me via my blog and or here?
Awesome buuuut you know you're producing xrays right? have you considered more shielding to prevent unnecessary exposure?
at 10 kV?
How would you calculate the magnification of the microscope without using a refrence? What is the maximum magnification of this microscope (theoretically and practically)??
Why do you use an oscilloscope?
What about plugging the signal in your laptop?
wow well cool
anda sangat luar biasa dan saya berharap anda mendapat pencapaian terbaik saya di indonesia masih sangat terbelakang tentang ini tetapi tidak sedikit dari kami sangat besar keinginan tentang SEM
you are required to analyze a biological sample by SEM. How can you eliminate the differences between the properties of the sample and the physical properties of SEM?