X-Ray Microscope

At a conference of the International Council of Scientific Unions in London, Sterling P. Newberry of the General Electric Co. last week told about the invention of an instrument that scientists have coveted for years. It is a new X-ray microscope, developed by Newberry and Selby E. Summers at the G.E. laboratory in Schenectady.

Scientists have never been able to get a magnified X-ray look at internal structures through ordinary optical microscopes, since X rays cannot be focused by optical lenses like ordinary light. The best X rays can do is to cast shadows of the objects that they have passed through.

Usually, the shadows are ill-defined because the source of the X rays is comparatively large (e.g. as in an X-ray chest plate). As the source grows smaller, the sharpness of the shadows increases.

In the G.E. microscope, the X rays are generated by an electron beam that is focused by electronic lenses on a spot only one-100,000th of an inch in diameter, 300 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. X rays coming from this tiny pinpoint cast shadows so sharp that they keep their definition even when thrown on a fluorescent screen or photographic film with 1,500 diameters of magnification.

According to Newberry, the new instrument will permit biologists, for the first time, to examine microscopically the interiors of such small living organisms as fruit flies and germinating seeds. It will aid the study of the internal fine structure of metals, paints, plastics and other materials. In medicine, it will enable pathologists to study small-scale ailments such as tooth decay and hardening of the arteries.

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