1. Everything is a wave
deBroglie and his matter waves, and its consequences for physics and our concept of reality
De Broglie late in his aristrocratic career decided to study physics and he wrote a doctoral thesis trying to get a more reasonable picture for Bohr. De Broglie went back to an earlier notion that discreteness came from waves – like the modes of a string – so he wondered if electrons in atoms had anything to do with the waves of a string

2. Why quantization of angular momentum?
an integer number of wavelengths fits into the circular orbit
where
And he realized something very simple. If the electron were a wave (or had wave-like character) and the allowed orbits were standing waves of the electrons in a circle. Then Bohrs condition of angular momentum quantization states that the wave-length of the electron must be related to its momentum. Incidentally it is the same relation for photons.
l is the de Broglie wavelength

3. Magnitudes of deBroglie wavelengths
Particle
Value of l
Electrons of kinetic energy
12.2 A A A
1 eV eV eV
Protons of kinetic energy
1 keV MeV GeV
0.009 A F F
Thermal neutrons (300K)
1.5 A
Neutrons of kinetic energy
9.0 F
So what is this length-scale that we are talking about – really small for even the smallest things……But we have measured this scale before – anyone remember when? Diffraction!!
0.75 A
He atoms at 300K
you, walking to the student union for lunch at 2 miles per hour

4. The Davisson Germer experiment
Davisson and Germer at Bell labs (and son Thomson) here tried to do exactly that and they invented electron diffraction. But Davisson and Germer didn’t know/care about de Broglie (which was about the same time) – they were just shooting electrons into nickel to study the atomic structure of its surface. They expected electrons to undergo diffuse reflection as if from a rough surface and that is what they were seeing. But then they accidentally annealed the crystal and they saw this pattern and they thought were interesting. Max Born was who realized that this verified de Broglies theory.

6. Transmission Electron Microscope
As a by-product we had a rather interesting application – electrons have much smaller wave-lengths then light.
Electrons have a wavelength that is much shorter than visible light. The smallest detail that can be resolved is equal to one wavelength.

7. Scanning Electron Microscope
Human hair
Table Salt
Red Blood Cells

8. Specimen interactions involved in forming an image
bulk (thick)
foil (thin)
Thin Specimens
Thick Specimens
Unscattered electrons are those which are transmitted through the material. Since the probability of transmission is proportional to thickness, it can give a reading of thickness variations.
Backscattered electrons can be used to identify elements in the material.
Auger electrons [emission of e in level drop] also can give compositional information.
Elastically scattered Bragg electrons give info about atomic spacing, crystal orientations, etc.
Secondary electrons are low in energy and thus can’t escape from the interior of the material. They mostly give information about the surface topography.
Loss of energy by electrons is characteristic of bulk composition.
X-rays are produced by de-excited atoms.