A photograph of a researcher in the Laboratory of Metallurgy at IIT Madras operating a Siemens transmission electron microscope, most likely of the model Elmiskop 1A, taken after 1971
As part of the second Indo-German collaboration in 1966, an electron microscope was to be installed in the Department of Metallurgy at IIT Madras. In 1968, the laboratory received a transmission electron microscope, most likely of the Elmiskop 1A model made by Siemens in 1964. This microscope was the upgraded version of Elmiskop 1, the first high-resolution electron microscope with a ‘double condenser’- magnetic lenses used to focus the electron beams onto the object using magnetic fields – which was manufactured in series production in 1954. The features of the Elmiskop 1A included switched magnifications, simplified high-quality vacuum pumps, and excellent image quality with up to 160,000 times magnification in high resolution.
The electron source, located at the top of the microscope, was connected to a high voltage power source (40 – 100 kV).
Edith Butenuth (wife of Gottfried Butenuth, Chemistry, IIT Madras) joined the Physical Metallurgy department as an associate professor on October 3, 1968, and stayed until 1971. In December 1968, she conducted a session on "Vacuum Techniques in Electron Microscopy" at the short course on "High Vacuum Technology" organised by IIT Madras and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay. Her primary objective, aside from teaching classes and conducting laboratory courses, was to set up the electron microscope, which she did in 1971.
The researcher seen in the photograph is yet to be identified.
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