electron microscope


noun
  1. a microscope of extremely high power that uses beams of electrons focused by magnetic lenses instead of rays of light, the magnified image being formed on a fluorescent screen or recorded on a photographic plate: its magnification is substantially greater than that of any optical microscope.

Origin of electron microscope

1
First recorded in 1930–35

Words Nearby electron microscope

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use electron microscope in a sentence

  • It took an electron microscope to do it, but he found a virus in the blue patches which matched the type discovered on Tralee.

    Pariah Planet | Murray Leinster
  • I'll arrange for one of the teaching fellows to show you how to prepare metallic samples and operate the electron microscope.

    The Year When Stardust Fell | Raymond F. Jones
  • The electron microscope told them that, now that they had the substance isolated and could examine it.

    Star Surgeon | Alan Nourse
  • The screen was a cubical frame in which an apparently solid image was built up of an object under an electron microscope.

    The Jupiter Weapon | Charles Louis Fontenay
  • He found his father in the laboratory working with the electron microscope.

    The Year When Stardust Fell | Raymond F. Jones

British Dictionary definitions for electron microscope

electron microscope

noun
  1. a powerful type of microscope that uses electrons, rather than light, and electron lenses to produce a magnified image

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for electron microscope

electron microscope

  1. A microscope that produces images of extremely small objects by using beams of electrons rather than visible light. Since electrons have a much shorter wavelength than light, the use of electron beams rather than light beams can resolve much finer structural details in the sample. Electrons are beamed at the sample and focused by magnets; a detector then converts the refracted or reflected beams into a black and white image. See also scanning electron microscope.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cultural definitions for electron microscope

electron microscope

A device that uses electrons instead of light to form images of very small objects, such as individual parts of small living things.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.