Homemade electron microscope.

Imagine how easy molecular biology and material science would be if you could build a decent electron microscope for <$1000. You'd start hearing stories about how some out-of-pocket funded lab in Uganda built meta materials for fracture resistant solar panels.

Something that if you want to do today will cost you $500K a minimum

This is the goal of this project. To make a super cheap cryo electron microscope (or simple TEM), open source it, mass email the design to as many scientists in the developing world as possible and wait for one of them to change the world and win a Nobel.

Progress so far.

• Sourced a cheap electron gun → see tweet here

After tinkering with the electron gun stage of the EM, I decided to put this on pause for two reasons;- 1. cryogenic sample handling setup I had in mind was crossing my intended <$1000 budget. 2. Radiation 💀. After some tinkering with the e-beam optics,I realised that I heavily underestimated the x ray exposure risk.

This has been put on ice till I have access to a proper lab and a tad bit more disposable cash.

Sorry to disappoint :(