Albert V. Crewe, the University of Chicago physicist who developed the high-resolution electron microscope that captured the first image of an individual atom, died on Wednesday at his home in the Lake Michigan community of Dune Acres, Ind. He was 82.
The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, his daughter Jennifer said.
Crewe's research opened a new window into the Lilliputian world of the fundamental building blocks of nature, giving scientists and engineers in fields as varied as computing and biology a powerful new tool to understand the architecture of everything from living tissue to metal alloys.
Crewe designed an enhanced electron source to bombard the object being scanned and later improved lens and detection technologies as well. This culminated in the first successful version of a system known as a scanning transmission electron microscope, or STEM.
While earlier microscopes had achieved resolutions of several angstroms, Crewe used his new electron source and newly available ultra-high-vacuum technologies to attain a tenfold improvement in image contrast, making it possible to see details not previously visible.
Finally, in June 1970 in the journal Science, he published a research report titled "Visibility of Single Atoms," in which he cautiously documented photographic evidence that showed images of uranium and thorium atoms.
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