ABSTRACT
Charles Oatley stands with Manfred von Ardenne as one of the two great pioneers of scanning electron microscopy. His involvement with the SEM began immediately after World War II when, fresh from his wartime experience in the development of radar, he perceived that new techniques could be brought to bear which would overcome some of the fundamental problems encountered by von Ardenne in his pre-war research on the instrument. Oatley’s pioneering work led directly to the launch of the world’s first series production instrument - the Stereoscan - in 1965.
