DIY Scanning Electron Microscope - Overview

What people said

fpordeig · 2015-06 · Strong recommendation

[VIDEO] Ben Karsnow's channel is really inspiring. With every video, he pushes the limits of what I thought it was possible to do in your garage.

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godelski · 2025-10 · Reference

Fun fact, you can make a basic scope at home. It definitely is not easy but probably not as expensive as you might think (actually not much at all!). Ben Krasnow (Applied Science) has a few videos and blog posts on the topic[0,1,2]. The Tungsten Filaments can be expensive, but I sent an email to the company and they sent me some samples to play with. It's been years so I forgot who I contacted. I tried the Nalgene bottle method but honestly I could not get it to hold a tight enough vacuum. The electron beam was very unstable and it is just really hard to purge and backfill the "chamber". The hardest part is getting the beam control circuit. I never got that refined myself for clear images, but I'm sure I could have gotten it with more time (it was a DIY work project so other things took priorities[3]). For our purposes the beam mattered more, so we went with what we could get. But even "failing" I learned a lot and it was a ton of fun. It's pretty exciting to get a beam to produce. And keep in mind, even if you do get it fully running you shouldn't expect it to be anywhere near on par with the professional ones. Machining is great these days and we have a lot of advantages we can leverage as even hobbyists that shops couldn't get even a few decades ago, but we're talking about a high precision machine. If the idea of having one for fun excites you, then it is worth the go. It was one of the most fun things I've ever made (maybe only next to a sputtering gun, which was very su

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failwhaleshark · 2021-04 · Reference

Neat. IIRC, wasn't there a project using a well-sharpened pencil tip? Also, Applied Science had one in 2011. [VIDEO]

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