Most powerful of all are electron microscopes and field ion microscopes.

Here he developed the field ion microscope which, due to its resolution of 0.25 nm, was the first instrument used to observe atoms.

Initial field ion microscopes, precursors to modern atom probes, were usually glass blown devices developed by individual research laboratories.

Erwin Wilhelm Müller - invented the field ion microscope, and the atom probe.

His thesis work was on atomic binding of 5-d transition-metal atoms using Field ion microscope (FIM).

He co-invented the Atom-Probe Field Ion Microscope at Penn State in 1967.

Field Ion Microscope (FIM)

This was demonstrated by comparing FEM and field ion microscope (FIM) images of the emitter.

In 1951, physicist Erwin Wilhelm Müller invents the field ion microscope and is the first to see atoms, e.g. bonded atomic arrangements at the tip of a metal point.

S. Brooks McLane co-invented the Atom-Probe Field Ion Microscope in 1967 along with J.A. Panitz and Erwin Wilhelm Müller.

Professor Smith graduated from Oxford with a Metallurgy degree in 1965, and did postgraduate work in the Chemistry Department, where he used the field emission microscope and the field ion microscope to study the epitaxial growth of nickel on tungsten.

He played a major role, over several decades, in shaping the development of the field from fundamental work, using the field ion microscope, on the imaging and bonding of individual atoms at surfaces to the fundamentals of surface catalysis of hydrocarbon chemistry by the transition metals.