Precious life-blood of a master-spirit.

Ultramicroscopy 152 (2015) 21–34

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ultramicroscopy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ultramic

Precious life-blood of a master-spirit P.W. Hawkes CEMES-CNRS, B.P. 94347, F-31055 Toulouse cedex, France

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 22 December 2014 Accepted 28 December 2014 Available online 30 December 2014

Recent books on microscopy and related topics, including bad writing, are examined. & 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Books Proceedings

1. News from Japan Where have they all gone Electron aberrations? Contrast vanished too. Those of you who have a copy of Pennycook and Nellist's Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (Springer, New York, 2011) on your shelves will need to make room for Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy of Nanomaterials, officially “edited” by N. Tanaka, though he is in fact author or co-author of seven of the 14 chapters and four of the ten appendices [1]. This is a valuable complement to Pennycook and Nellist, written in a very readable style, packed with information and helpful explanations, and above all, very up to date – there is, for example, a chapter on secondary electron imaging in STEM and Tanaka's concluding chapter evokes the very latest ideas. After the introduction, Tanaka surveys the history of the STEM. The 26 sections each cover one or a small group of instruments, beginning of course with a few words about the prehistory before turning to Crewe's seminal contribution. I cannot list every section, but Tanaka has something to say about the projects of Strojnik, Le Poole and Jouffey, the Vacuum Generators instruments, Hitachi, JEOL, the IBM STEM with which Batson et al. crossed the 1 Å barrier and then each of the aberration-corrected instruments, with a section on the Nion UltraSTEM, not forgetting the Japanese national projects R005 and Triple C. The next two long chapters (about 60 pages each) explain how a STEM works and how it can be used to study nanomaterials and biological specimens. Then come four chapters on ‘Theories of STEM imaging’. First, K. Watanabe presents the theory of HAADF-STEM and related methods of simulation, after which S.D. Findlay et al. deal with annular bright-field imaging, adumbrated by Rose in the 1970s. K. Kimoto E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2014.12.010 0304-3991/& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

then describes ‘Electron energy-loss spectroscopy in STEM and its imaging’ including a careful discussion of spatial resolution of EELS in STEM. This part concludes with ‘Density functional theory for ELNES in STEM-EELS’ by T. Mizoguchi. The final part contains six chapters on ‘Advanced methods in STEM’. First, in ‘Aberration correction in STEM’, H. Sawada takes us through the use of quadrupoles and octopoles before explaining the action of the sextupole correctors. As we should expect from H. Sawada, a full and very clear account of the electron optics of these devices is provided. Next, H. Inada and Y. Zhu explain how secondary electrons can be used to form a high-resolution image in a STEM. They conclude that the theory of this recent addition to STEM imaging modes is still imperfect and “hope for future advancement in the near future”. K. Mitsuishi and M. Takeguchi then describe ‘Scanning confocal electron microscopy’. The last three chapters are all by N. Tanaka. First, full accounts of ‘Electron tomography in STEM’ and ‘Electron holography and Lorentz electron microscopy in STEM’ and to conclude, ‘Recent topics and future prospects in STEM’. Here, he tells us about such matters as chromatic aberration correction, simulation of ADF and ABF images, low-voltage STEM, high-resolution wet STEM, pulsed beams, coincidence spectroscopy and the use of spin-polarized and vortex beams. The book is generously illustrated, with many nice line-drawings, historic photographs, micrographs and spectra and, as a bonus, it has a name index as well as a subject index; name indexes are a seriously endangered species so it is good to meet a survivor. Highly recommended. N. Tanaka is also one of the editors of a relatively new journal, which records a series of biennial symposia in Japan, launched in 2008. The International Journal of Advanced Microscopy and Theoretical Calculations or AMTC Letters has now reached volume 4, which includes 23 invited talks and more than 100 posters [2]. There are sections on Interfaces and grain boundaries, Environmental and dynamic TEM, Modelling and simulations and

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P.W. Hawkes / Ultramicroscopy 152 (2015) 21–34

Frontiers of materials science but the sections of most interest here are those on Electron holography and Advanced microscopy and spectroscopy. The former contains three papers: ‘Quantum phenomena visualised by electron waves’ (N. Osakabe), ‘Towards atomic resolution and ultrafast electron holography of electrostatic potentials in working devices (R.E. Dunin-Borkowski and 5 coauthors) and ‘In situ electron holography and spatially resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy for studying electrochemical reactions at electrode/electrolyte interfaces in an all-solid-state lithium-ion battery’ (T. Hirayama and 4 co-authors). Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy is a longer section (20 abstracts) with papers on vortices (J. Verbeeck and 6 co-authors), quantitative analytical microscopy at atomic resolution (L.J. Allen and 13 co-authors), sub-20 meV resolution EELS (O.L. Krivanek and 13 coauthors), atomic resolution differential phase contrast microscopy (N. Shibata et al.), nano-second time-resolved measurement in spin-polarized pulse TEM (Y. Nambo and 8 co-authors), a monochromator with double Wien-filter for aberration-corrected STEM (M. Mukai and 10 co-authors) and a most intriguing contribution by J. Yamasaki and 6 co-authors on the influence of nonlinear intensity attenuation in bright-field TEM images on tomographic reconstruction of micron-scaled materials. The journal is beautifully produced with colour throughout. The three preceding volumes are all just as varied. Volume 1 (2008) has papers by S.J. Pennycook and 5 co-authors, U. Dahmen and 3 co-authors, N.D. Browning and 8 co-authors and S. Imamoto and 5 co-authors on aberration-corrected microscopy as well as numerous articles on electron holography including papers by A. Tonomura and H. Lichte. Volume 2 (2010) has a long section on electron holography, Lorentz microscopy and environmental TEM; in Advanced microscopy, we meet papers on annular bright-field field STEM (S.D. Findlay and 5 co-authors), a new segmented STEM detector (Y. Kohno and 5 co-authors) and an aberration-corrected 30–60 kV TEM/STEM (T. Sasaki and 9 co-authors). Other sections cover Modelling and Simulations and Frontiers of Materials Science, which opens with a paper by S. Iijima on ‘Dynamic processes of nano-materials revealed by atom-resolution electron microscopy’. Volume 3 has a section on environmental and in-situ TEM, which begins with an account of double-aberration-corrected ETEM and ESTEM at York by E.D. Boyes and 3 co-authors followed by ‘Developments of ultra high-resolution/HV/3D ETEMs and their applications in materials science’ by N. Tanaka. Advanced microscopy includes electron magnetic circular dichroism (S. Muto et al.), chromatic corrected electron microscopy (L. Houben and 7 coauthors) and ‘Advantage of low-kV aberration-corrected scanning/ transmission electron microscopy’ (T. Sasaki and 6 co-authors). This gives no more than the flavour of this series, make sure you have access to it in the future. Tonomura's name above reminds me that a magnificent tribute to him has been prepared by his lifelong friend K. Fujikawa of RIKEN and his associate at the Hitachi Advanced Research Laboratory (HARL), Y.A. Ono [3]. This beautifully produced volume opens with a collection of photographs of Tonomura, including the delightful picture taken by his secretary, Kimi Matsuyama, in 2009. A biographical article by N. Osakabe and an account of the FIRST Tonomura International Symposium on ‘Electron Microscopy and Gauge Fields’ by Y.A. Ono follow. Next, recollections by H. Fukuyama (‘Thank you and farewell to Tonomura-kun’), M. Berry, A. Zeilinger and K. Fujikawa, after which three long sections cover the principal areas of Tonomura's research: Gauge theory and Aharonov–Bohm effect (ten contributions), Application of electron microscopy to quantum mechanics and materials science (five contributions including ‘The picture is my life’ by S. Hasegawa) and Quantum physics (six contributions). After this, many of Tonomura's publications are reproduced and his books in English and principal publications are listed. As a bonus to all this, a DVD

enables us to see the build-up of a two-slit interference pattern and three examples of the movement of vortices. All Tonomura's friends and admirers will want a copy.

2. Electron microscopy and analysis Microscopes and telescopes confuse the human mind. Goethe A book on Surface Microscopy with Low Energy Electrons by E. Bauer is the natural culmination of his many review articles and Springer has accorded it the high publishing standards and pleasing typeface that we associate with such classics as Reimer's texts, with in-place colour as a bonus [4]. The first chapter takes the history of the subject from the 1930s up to recent times, with illustrations of many forgotten instruments: Brüche's electron optical bench, Zworykin's so-called secondary electron emission microscope of 1933, Hottenroth's mirror microscope of 1937, the Philips magnetic thermionic emission electron microscope of the mid-1950s, Balzer's Metioscope, the Portland ultra-high-vacuum electrostatic photoelectron emission microscope, Bethge and Heidenreich's mirror electron microscope of the 1970s and the short-lived JEOL electron mirror microscope (1968). Bauer then takes us systematically through all aspects of the subject. First, Basic Interactions beginning with electron emission theory, after which photoemission and electron reflection are described at length. In Chapter 3, Instrumentation, he first describes PEEM and LEEM, aberration-corrected instruments, spectroscopic imaging instruments and spin-resolved imaging systems. The second part of the same chapter examines each component separately: objective lens and other axial-symmetric lenses, magnetic deflectors, aberration correctors, energy filters, Wien filters, photon sources, electron sources and other components (image detectors, vacuum system including airlock and specimen preparation chamber and electronics). The next chapter presents ‘The theory of image formation’ with a lucid account of contrast transfer theory for instruments of this type; the response of the image acquisition system is included in the discussion. The remaining chapters are concerned with various types of applications, which I shall just list: Applications in surface science: surface microstructure, adsorption, film growth and structure. Applications in other fields: graphene, plasmons, technological applications, biology and a multimethod case study. Magnetic imaging: ferromagnetic films, bulk magnetic materials, ferromagnet– antiferromagnet interfaces, magnetic nanostructures, ferroelectrics/multiferroics. In the last chapter, Bauer returns to instrumentation. ‘Other Surface Imaging Methods with Electrons’ covers scanning low energy electron microscopy, scanning low energy electron diffraction microscopy, reflection electron microscopy, secondary and Auger electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with spin analysis and scanning photoemission electron microscopy. A proud claim ends the book: “The combination of a wide variety of complementary methods (LEEM, mLEED, MEM, UVPEEM, XPEEM in the secondary electron and photoelectron mode, mXPS, mXPD, various dichroism PEEM modes (MCD, MLD, NLD)) gives full-field cathode lens microscopy a unique position in the field of surface analysis [the list of acronyms fills three pages]. Microstructure, crystal structure, electronic structure, chemical composition and bonding, magnetic domain structure, work function, and other surface properties can be obtained in this manner. In addition, there is sufficient access to the sample during investigation that it can be exposed to gas or vapour beams so that the microscope becomes a versatile system for experimentation, not only a system for imaging of externally prepared samples. These possibilities are enhanced in large specimen chambers,


which allow attachment of multiple evaporators, gas sources, a mass spectrometer, and other accessories. This makes these instruments not simple imaging systems but small-scale laboratories for the study of the properties of and processes on/in surfaces, thin films and nanostructures”. For anyone even distantly interested in the LEEM–PEEM family, this book is essential reading. The German edition of Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy by J. Thomas and T. Gemming has already been mentioned here (No. 17 in [49]). They have now produced this English text (the epigraph above comes from the Preface). “Why do we need an additional textbook about this topic?” they ask, and reply that one cannot do analytical electron microscopy unless one knows about electron microscope imaging, electron diffraction, characteristic x-rays and EELS, which are the themes of their book [5]. Certainly Williams and Carter cover all these topics as do older texts such as Reimer's well-known volumes, but Thomas and Gemming are less than confident that their audience is keen to learn. Thus chapter 1, ‘Why such an effort?’, starts “with an example. When we are waiting for a tram at a tram stop and the tram approaches but we cannot read the number of the tram line, we have to wait until the tram approaches us. The experience teaches: To see smaller details we have to shorten the viewing distance. Or in other words: The visual angle s (Fig. 1.1) must be large enough”. Several pages of very elementary optics follow, grim reminders of the decline in the teaching of basic optics in modern school curricula. Chapters on sample preparation, use of the microscope, electron diffraction contrast, higher magnification, STEM, analytical tools and finally ‘Basics explained in more detail (with a bit more mathematics)’. The tone is chatty throughout and it is assumed that the microscopist will need to be told to acquire such tools as tweezers. Since most newcomers to the electron microscope would presumably learn their business in a laboratory already equipped with such things, this advice struck me as otiose. My overall opinion is that the authors are aiming rather low – but they know their audience better than I do! One last criticism: in the past, Springer encouraged authors whose first language was not English to have their text vetted by a native English speaker. This would have been wise here to eliminate such sentences as “Changing the focal length allows to image object planes being in different distances onto the screen. Later, we will see which capabilities can be opened by this”. Foreign authors, please do remember that ‘allow’, ‘permit’ and (normally) ‘enable’ require a direct object: ‘we permit someone to do something’ or ‘we permit something [to be done]’; we never ‘permit to do’ whatever is planned. Despite all this, let me add that the authors know their subject thoroughly and newcomers to AEM will find this text helpful. Next two huge volumes in the Methods in Molecular Biology series, Springer Protocols: the third edition of Electron Microscopy, Methods and Protocols edited by J. Kuo [6] and Electron Crystallography of Soluble and Membrane Proteins edited by I. SchmidtKrey and Y. Cheng [7]. There are 34 chapters in Kuo's volume so I can only give a sample. Numerous contributions deal with one aspect or another of cryo-electron microscopy and an interesting chapter is devoted to ‘Biological applications of phase-contrast electron microscopy’ in which modern phase plates are discussed. Correlative light and electron microscopy is covered by C. Spiegelhalter et al. and there are other chapters on the same theme. M. Saunders and J.A. Shaw describe ‘Biological applications of energyfiltered TEM’. I could not find any mention of the role of aberration-corrected electron microscopy. As always in these Protocol volumes, exact instructions for carrying out the various procedures are provided – an enormous amount of information is compressed into the nearly 800 pages of this collection. The volume on electron crystallography is no less impressive a compendium, which covers in very down-to-earth terms every aspect of the subject. ‘Introduction to electron crystallography’ by W. Kühlbrandt and

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‘Future directions of electron crystallography’ by Y. Fujiyoshi act as bookends for 28 other contributions, each occupying about 19 pages. Recording data, manipulating the records, automation are all described and a chapter by K.H. Downing describes ‘Future developments in instrumentation of electron crystallography’. Extremely useful if this is what you do, or would like to do. Another cumbersome book (750 large pages on thick paper) is Fundamentals of Picoscience edited by K.D. Sattler [8]. The 37 chapters are divided into nine parts: Picoscale detection, characterization and imaging, Scanning probe microscopy, Electron orbitals, Atomic-scale magnetism, Picowires, Picometer positioning and Picoscale devices. In Picoscale imaging, S. Lozano-Perez surveys ‘Sub-nanometer scale electron microscopy analysis’ and manages to compress a lot of information into his 15 pages. Scanning probe microscopy will also interest ultramicroscopists: ‘Atomic-resolution frequency modulation’ (T. Fukuma), ‘Theory for picoscale scanning tunnelling microscopy’ (J. Nieminen), ‘Electrochemical STM’ (K. Gentz and K. Wandelt), ‘Cold-atom scanning probe microscopy’ (A. Günther et al.) and ‘Atomic resolution ultrafast scanning tunnelling microscope’ (Q. Lu). Under Picoscale detection, L. Rabenberg describes ‘Electrostatic potential mapping in electron holography. He is an enthusiastic defender of the technique: “In fact, there are reasons to believe that electron holography may advance more rapidly than electron microscopy in the next few years. Both techniques are currently limited by microscope structural instabilities that manifest themselves in vibrations, specimen shifts, and the like. HREM has the added burden of chromatic aberration; recent advances in this area have come at a great cost in instrumental complexity and severe constraints on power supplies, electron-optical columns, and the entire microscope environment. New developments in holographyrelated techniques can push well into the picometer range for certain specimens [this refers to ptychography]. In any case, the fact that electron holography has finally escaped from the specialists’ labs increases the probability that new, creative minds will push the electron holography limits”. However, he is carried away by his enthusiasm when he tells us that “Gabor proposed EH [electron holography, a quite unnecessary acronym] in order to extend the resolving power of electron beam instruments by totally eliminating the lenses along with their aberrations”! Next, three books on related subjects. First, In-situ Materials Characterization across Spatial and Temporal Scales, edited and largely written by A. Ziegler, H. Graafsma, X.F. Zhang and J.W.M. Frenken [9]. This begins with “Congratulations on selecting this book”, which reminded me of the odd practice of congratulating couples on their engagement, as though it had been an uphill task but they made it despite all the obstacles. Seven chapters (35 pages long on average) cover ‘In-situ characterization of molecular processes in liquids by ultrafast x-ray absorption spectroscopy’ (M. Chergui), ‘In-situ x-ray diffraction at synchrotrons and free-electron laser sources’ (V. Vonk and H. Graafsma), ‘In-situ transmission electron microscopy’ (X.F. Zhang), ‘Ultrafast transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction’ (A. Ziegler), ‘In-situ and kinetic studies using neutrons’ (G. Eckold and H. Schober), ‘Scanning tunneling microscopy at elevated pressure’ (J.W.M. Frenken) and ‘Detectors for electron and x-ray scattering and imaging’ (A. Ziegler and H. Graafsma). Zhang concludes with a list of ‘Technical challenges ahead’: “How to precisely control and quantitatively measure the applied fields or exotic environments at TEM specimens, for example temperature, gas pressure, gas or liquid composition right on TEM specimens? How to enable the atomic resolution TEM imaging in versatile environments applied to TEM specimen chambers? How to achieve sub-nanometer or higher imaging resolution for the in-situ liquid E-cell TEM? Chromatic aberration-corrected TEM is certainly one of the solutions although the cost is high. How to squeeze multiple external fields or

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illumination sources into the narrow pole piece gap of a transmission electron microscope while maintain [sic] high resolution power? A large pole piece gap combined with aberration-corrected TEM is promising. How to observe, capture, and store high quality images at high temporal resolution on a level of microseconds to picosconds? The pulsed laser beam-induced ultrafast TEM may make a breakthrough in this respect. How to analyse the recorded amount of digital data in a quantitative and efficient time? How to identify the side effects of electron beam irradiation and to reduce their influences? How to deal with beam sensitive materials? This is a particularly tough challenge for in-situ TEM from the technical point of view”. Some answers are already emerging as the recent work of P.L. Gai and E.D. Boyes shows (the most recent reference to Gai and Boyes is 2008). Incidentally the list of references includes some titles but not all, though they are readily available on Internet (Journal of Applied Physics, Science, Physical Review and Microscopy and Microanalysis among others) – why did the copy-editor not complain? (And why was the English not tidied up, surely an essential part of the copy-editor's role?) The chapter on detectors is particularly welcome as these vital elements do not always receive full coverage. The second title is a stout volume (700 pages of text) on Transmission Electron Microscopy Characterization of Nanomaterials edited by C.S.S.R. Kumar [10]. There is no preface so I do not know on what principle the themes of the 14 chapters were selected. These extend over biological and inorganic nanocomposites (P. Qiu et al.), photovoltaic materials (A.I. Taylor and B.G. Mendis), semiconductor nanomaterials (E. Carlino), polymeric nano-composites (A. Kato and 4 co-authors), nanowires and nanorods (S.K. St. Angelo), core-shell nanomaterials (Y. Wang and C. Wang), valence electron spectroscopy (M. Terauchi), semiconductor nanowires using STEM (M. de la Mata and J. Arbiol), thermoelectric materials (H. Wu and J. He), solution-derived lanthanum strontium manganites (P. Abellán and 3 co-authors), metallic nanocatalysts (D. Su), 3D electron microscopy (I. Florea et al.) and 1D-nanostructures (T. Ben and 4 co-authors). The chapter on 3-D reconstruction is knowledgeable, though the choice of background references is somewhat eccentric – there are more extensive, recent reviews by P.A. Midgley, for example, and several excellent books and long review articles on 3-D reconstruction in biology (see [16,17] below and earlier books by J. Frank). Kumar promises us a successor in 2015 [11]. In Practical Materials Characterization [12], M. Sardela and his colleagues in the University of Illinois together with J.G. Wen from Argonne National Laboratory give short accounts of five of the many methods in use: ‘X-ray diffraction and reflectivity’ by M.R. Sardela, optical characterization by J.A.N.T. Soares, ‘X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES)’ by R.T. Haasch, ‘Secondary ion mass spectrometry’ by J.E. Baker and ‘Transmission electron microscopy’ by J.G. Wen. Since they have only about 45 pages each, the authors cannot do more than introduce their subjects and list the main points of interest. Nevertheless, some of them manage to squeeze a substantial amount of information into their chapters. Thus J.A.N.T. Soares describes absorption, Mie and Rayleigh scattering, Raman and Brillouin scattering, spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ellipsometry and Raman spectroscopy. In his conclusions, Soares summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the whole book: “Here, we hope we had offered a little flavour of this field in a few chosen examples, so the interested reader can gain an insight of the possibilities offered by optical characterization of materials. Many important techniques, as photoluminescence, the many varieties of optical microscopy, modulation spectroscopies, time-domain and transient optical spectroscopies, and many others were left out of this brief introduction as a compromise to remain adequately succinct to fit this book, yet

give enough information about the few techniques mentioned, to be an useful reference”. In the chapter on transmission electron microscopes, J.G. Wen says a few words about many aspects of TEM and SEM but he has so little space that shortcuts are inevitable. The section on ‘Thickness–mass contrast’ (6 lines) is particularly misleading: “Thickness–mass contrast is an amplitude contrast resulting from the absorption of electrons travelling inside the specimen. Both mass and thickness variations can produce contrast, because electrons interact with more material. Thickness–mass contrast is the most important one for amorphous materials. Although [sic] we will discuss below, the thickness– mass contrast always coexists with other contrast mechanisms”. In his preface, M. Sardela tells us that J.G. Wen is “one of the worldclass experts in the field”; it was a shame to take him away from his microscope to write this chapter. In the Springer Theses series is In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy Studies of Carbon Nanotube Nucleation Mechanism and Carbon Nanotube-clamped Metal Atomic Chains by D.-m. Tang [13]. This little book (74 pp.) has been handsomely printed by Springer, with colour in place in the text. I turned eagerly to ‘Motivations of the thesis’ expecting a personal, autobiographical touch but alas, we are told only about “challenges” in CNT research. All we are told about the author is that he and Professor Feng Li “both like photography, on the weekends, we often went out into the wild to take photos of the nature and had random discussion about undefined topics, truly enjoyable journeys”, a refreshing change from nanotubes. The Royal Society of Chemistry has sent me Nanofabrication and its Application in Renewable Energy [14] edited by G. Zhang of the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore and N. Manjooran, who “provides leadership for the entire Siemens energy portfolio” as well as serving as adjunct/distinguished professor at Virginia Tech and playing tennis and golf (here, there is a section on ‘Author biographies’, which are in fact editor biographies). The six chapters are devoted to Fabrication techniques of graphene nanostructures (X. Wang and Y. Shi), Nanophotonic light trapping theory for photovoltaics (Y. Fu et al.), Micro/nano fabrication technologies for vibration-based energy harvester (B. Yang and J. Liu), Thermal and thermoelectric properties of nanomaterials (G. Zhang), Nanotubes for energy storage (H. Pan) and Measurements of photovoltaic cells (H. Xuebo and Z. Jing). This can be regarded as a trailer for the forthcoming new edition of Nanocharacterisation edited by S. Haigh and our editor, which is still in gestation, not due out until Spring 2015. This year's Annual Review of Materials Research [15] has a thematic section, ‘Oxide Electronics’, and a section on ‘Current Interest’. Although the latter does not contain anything specifically ultramicroscopical, there is much of general interest, notably ‘Biologically inspired mushroom-shaped adhesive microstructures’ by L. Heepe and S.N. Gorb and ‘Practical aspects of modern and future permanent magnets’ by R.W. McCallum and 4 co-authors. “Despite the hundreds of magnets in or on the average house, car, and teenager, if you asked typical consumers to name their possessions that contain magnets, they would probably give you a very short list. The diverse applications of permanent magnets create a demand for a large variety of materials based on the application requirements, including the strength of the magnet for a given size; the ability of the magnet to maintain its field in the presence of a reverse field, high temperatures, and hostile environments; and, of course, its cost. Bonded oxide magnets, made of inexpensive strontium ferrite…pitch advertisements on your refrigerator and seal the refrigerator door. Sintered ferrites in the magnetron assist in generating microwaves in your microwave oven. Alnico magnets…are in the circuit switch sensors of your burglar alarm. The more expensive bonded Nd‒Fe‒B or ‘neo’ magnets…spin your CDs and DVDs and sintered neo magnets move the read/write head across your computer hard disk, recording and retrieving data. Large volumes of permanent magnets


are found in hybrid and electric vehicles, direct-drive wind turbines, and many energy-efficient appliances. These magnets are vitally important to military applications, as they add functionality to jet fighter engines and electronic countermeasure, missile, and satellite communication systems”. Rare-earth-based supermagnets are a major preoccupation: “This compositional adjustment [of a Nd-based permanent magnet alloy] is accomplished largely with the addition of heavy rare earth elements, primarily Dy, whose proven global resources are inadequate to meet this demand”. The outlook is not quite so bleak: “Fortunately, researchers have new tools with which to characterize, understand, and tailor the mechanisms for coercivity and magnetization in these compounds. Experimental methods for exploring wide areas of phase space are also being used to identify new magnetic compounds. Computational tools can provide detailed descriptions of the relationship among atomic composition, order, and interaction of the magnetic spins. These techniques can even be used to discover new compounds. Significant research efforts are under way to exploit these possibilities. As was the case in the 1980s with the global supply disruption of Co, a shortage of critical materials can be a boon for materials discovery”. Scanning electron microscopy does appear in the chapter by Heepe and Gorb, where Fig. 2 shows images of “spatula-shaped terminal contact elements, in contact with smooth glass, as found in the hairy attachment pads of the fly (Calliphora vicina), spider (Cupiennius salei) and tokay gecko (Gekko gekko). J. Frank is well known among three-dimensional reconstructors and a number of his books have appeared here in the past. With G. T. Herman, he has now edited Computational Methods for Threedimensional Microscopy Reconstruction, based on the papers at a minisymposium on the subject held in New York in 2012 [16]. After the introduction, the chapters cover ‘Interchanging geometry conventions in 3DEM: mathematical context for the development of standards’ (C.O.S. Sorzano and 7 co-authors), ‘Fully automated particle selection and verification in single-particle cryo-EM’ (R. Langlois and 3 co-authors), ‘Quantitative analysis in iterative classification schemes for cryo-EM application’ (B. Shen and 3 coauthors), ‘High-resolution cryo-EM structure of the Trypanosoma brusei ribosome’ (A. des Georges and 13 co-authors), ‘Computational methods for electron tomography of influenza virus’ (Y. Benkarroum and 5 co-authors), ‘Reconstruction from microscopic projections with defocus-gradient and attenuation effects’ (J. Klukowska and G.T. Herman), ‘Soft x-ray tomography imaging for biological samples’ (J. Otón and 5 co-authors) and ‘Using component trees to explore biological structure’ (L.M. Oliviera et al.). These titles speak for themselves and I suspect that most structural biologists will want to acquire a copy. J. Frank has also edited a ‘Collection of original articles on single-particle reconstruction and the structural basis of protein synthesis’ entitled Found in Translation [17]. This is volume 2 of the World Scientific Series in Structural Biology, the first volume of which was Structural Aspects of Protein Synthesis by A. Liljas and M. Ehrenberg. Frank's collection opens with a history of his own activity in three-dimensional reconstruction, beginning with his initiation into electron microscopy in Walter Hoppe's laboratory in Munich and bringing the story up to the present decade – the most recent paper present here appeared in Nature in 2013. Forty-six articles are reproduced going back to a 1969 paper in Optik.

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The International Union of Crystallography Texts have reached Volume 20, Phasing in Crystallography: a Modern Perspective by C. Giacovazzo [18], already editor of an earlier volume on Fundamentals of Crystallography. This is a magnificent Text, nicely produced and introduced by a historical preface in which the author tells us that “crystallographic phasing methods may be subdivided into two main streams: the small and medium-sized molecule stream, and the macro-molecule stream; these were substantially independent from each other up until the 1990s.… It is the opinion of the author that the synergy between the two streams originated due to a common interest in electron density modification (EDM) techniques. This approach first proposed by Hoppe and Gassmann (1968) for small molecules was later extensively modified to be useful for both streams. Confluence of the two streams began in the 1990s…when EDM techniques were used to improve the efficiency of direct methods. That was the beautiful innovation of shake and bake; both direct and reciprocal space were explored to increase phasing efficiency (this was the second paradigm of direct methods). It was soon possible to solve ab initio structures with up to 2000 non-hydrogen atoms in the asymmetric unit, provided data at atomic or quasi-atomic resolution are available. As a consequence, the ab initio approach for proteins started to attract greater attention. A secondary effect of the EDM procedures was the recent discovery of new ab initio techniques, such as charge flipping and vive-la-différence (VLD) and the newly formulated Patterson techniques. The real revolution in the macromolecular area occurred when probabilistic methods, already widely used in small and medium-sized molecules, erupted into the protein field”. The book consists of 15 chapters and six appendices. M. Ladd has written Symmetry of Crystals and Molecules, a formal text for newcomers to crystallography: Geometry of crystals and molecules, Point group symmetry, Lattices, Space groups, Symmetry and x-ray diffraction, Elements of group theory, Application of group theory and Computer-assisted studies followed by 13 appendices [19]. In his foreword, Jan Boeyens tells us that he does not find much new in this presentation but he marvels at the comprehensive detail and rigour. Ladd gets off to a rather slow start with pictures of the Mercedes emblem, the National Westminster bank logo, a Dobermann bitch, a quartz crystal, a Grecian urn, a brick wall, a piano keyboard, partitions of music by Chopin and Beethoven and the colonnade of St Peter's in Rome. But this is merely bait, the pace soons quickens and each topic is handled with masterly clarity. J. Zegenhagen and A. Kazimirov, editors of The X-ray Standing Wave Technique, Principles and Applications, tell us that this is the first book on a mature subject, already about 50 years old [20]. Their book is therefore divided into two parts. The first 13 chapters are intended as a textbook, despite the fact that about 20 authors wrote them. Part 2 is a collection of essays on recent work on x-ray standing waves. A daunting list of about 140 acronyms precedes the Table of Contents. Five appendices record the reminiscences of some of the pioneers: B.W. Batterman, J. Golovchenko, W.M. Gibson, S. Kikuta and G. Materlik.

4. Breathing space and acyrology A man needs meat Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence

3. Crystallography Now to see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted artist, to feel almost as a pang the beautiful incentive, and to feel it verily in such a sort as to wish the danger intensified. Henry James

I have nothing as appetising as the RSC book on chocolate to offer but, for those of you who are not vegetarians, V. Smil has written Should we Eat Meat? Evolution and Consequences of Modern Carnivory. [21]. But perhaps I should not have excluded vegetarians (and a fortiori, vegans) for the whole purpose of this

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beautifully organised and well argued book is to assess the reasonableness of meat-lovers and the wisdom of those who abstain. The Preface tells us exactly what to expect: “ What all but a few typical (i.e., urban) carnivores do not realise is the extent to which the modern Western agriculture turns around (a better way to express this would be to say: is subservient to) animals: both in terms of the total cultivated area and overall crop output, it produces mostly animal feed…rather than food for direct human consumption… But, if they are so inclined, modern Western urbanites can find plenty of information about the obverse of their carnivory, about poor treatment of animals, about environmental degradation and pollution attributable to meat production, and about possible health impacts”. After elaborating these points, Smil asks “What are we to make of these contending and contradictory conclusions? Should we eat meat – or should we try to minimise its consumption and aim at its eventual elimination from human diets? My answers will be based on long-term perspectives and on complex and multidisciplinary considerations: my appraisals of the evolution of meat eating, historical changes and modern modalities of this practice and its benefits as well as its undesirable consequences are based on findings from disciplines ranging from archaeology to animal science and from evolutionary biology to environmental and economic studies. This is a book rooted in the facts and realities, not in predetermined posturing and sermonising, a book that looks at benefits of meat eating as well as at the failures and drawbacks, and that does not aspire to fit into any pre-cast categories, pro or contra, positively programmatic or aggressively negative. I do not approach the reality of modern large-scale carnivory with any pre-conceived notions, and I did not write this book in order to advocate any particular practice or point of view but merely in order to follow the best evidence to its logical conclusions”. The evidence is presented in five chapters: ‘Meat in nutrition’, ‘Meat in human evolution’, ‘Meat in modern societies’, ‘What it takes to produce meat’ and ‘Possible futures’. These are replete with information, based on published evidence, and although this is dense and not always easy reading, it is spiced with a host of asides and perceptive observations. Let me quote just one example: “The practice of herd driving (droving in Britain) is ancient: Pliny mentions flocks of geese driven from Gaul to Rome! Perhaps the two most remarkable well-documented instances of modern animal drives are that of pigs and cattle from Ohio to Philadelphia in 1815, and Leonetto Cipriani's incredible cattle drive from St. Louis to San Francisco in 1853 to supply California's gold-rush-driven demand for beef. Cattle driving took off as a regular commercial practice only with increasing populations and higher urban incomes, and it reached its peak just before the railways reached the cattle- or sheep-rich regions during the 19th century. Relatively short drives were common around Europe, and Britain's grassy north and west and populated south led to some early long-distance droves: by 1650, Scotland was sending more than 15,000 cattle (in droves of 200– 1000 heads at just 3 km/h) a year to the south, and cattle was also moved eastward from Wales; English droves declined even before the railways took over due to land enclosures of the late 18th century that restricted free-pass routes”. If only all books on such contentious subjects were written so calmly and objectively! The Materials and Craft of Early Iconographers [22] by M.D. Leonida is at once entertaining and instructive: “The book opens a window toward the hidden face, the material face, of the Orthodox icons, towards the secretive world of iconographers of times past. I hope that it is interesting and will capture you”, writes the author, brought up in Romania in a home bursting with Romanian paintings, icons, peasant decorative objects, and drawings. “Before I learned to read I could differentiate between icons on glass and those on wood, between the naive realism of paintings representing the working class building the socialist society and

those of the abstract-ironical Dadaism from an earlier time in the century. I gradually realised that although the language of visual arts is at least as strong and impressive as the written words, the bridge between the two can only be covered with the help of a guide – a book which explains in easy to understand words the images proposed by visual arts”. There are 11 chapters: ‘The technical part of the painter's manuals compiled and used by early iconographers’, ‘Materials from natural sources and those prepared in the iconographer's studio or household’, ‘Pigments’, ‘Gilding’, ‘Adhesives prepared from vegetal and animal sources used by iconographers’, Varnishes’, ‘Inks prepared and used by iconographers’, ‘About grinding’, ‘Iconographers and the Fresco technique’, ‘Icons on glass: materials and technique’ and ‘The apprenticeship of an iconographer’. They form a nice mixture of modern science and ancient lore. “It is common knowledge that, in both the Western and Eastern Europe, during the Middle Ages and later, cinnabar was much more expensive than minium (Pb3O4). In the Romanian Principalities, even as late as the 19th century, it was three times more expensive. Since both were red pigments, to decrease the expense for red colours, some minium was mixed with cinnabar. This operation was done sometimes with fraudulent design, especially since minium has a higher density than cinnabar”. This is followed by the chemical formulae describing the conversion of litharge into minium during the synthesis of cinnabar. A few pages later, we are told how the early painters learned to prepare such materials: “A reference to… plasticity is clearly made by the recommendations in the hermeneias [painters’ manuals] when appearance was one of the quality control criteria used for the process. In some Romanian manuscripts it is recommended for the aged calcium hydroxide to be clay-like or loam-like. In other Romanian manuscripts, as in similar Russian ones, it is recommended for the slaked lime to be ‘like pot cheese’, like butter, or to have the proper consistency ‘to be taken by shovel’, or ‘not to fall off the trowel when stirring it’. In Cennini's instructions for painters the same type of recommendation appears, to use the lime which was ‘so well slaked that it has the appearance of an ointment.’ “. William Morris would have loved every word! The book is full of surprises. In the Fresco chapter we learn that “Most Orthodox churches in Europe have interior painting but there are in Southeastern Europe churches which were painted on the outside too, in buon fresco, few in the Balkans and none in the Russian area. During the 19th century researchers…wrote that it was impossible to find well conserved exterior mediaeval frescoes. In the Romanian area there are still such works, 500 years old, which stood admirably the test of time. Besides the church of the Voronet Monastery, which is also known as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the East’, there are several others located in the eastern part of Romania (…), which were painted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They all have interior frescoes (as most Orthodox churches do), but are also fully painted on the outside. These exterior murals were admirably conserved in spite of climate which is harsh, with large variations in temperature from one season to another and abundant precipitation”. These and many other paintings are reproduced in colour but unfortunately, most of the illustrations are so small that little detail is discernible. A final chapter gives a fascinating insight into the physical and moral training of the iconographers. A touching moment occurred in the consecration ceremony, when the abbot hugged the novice journeyman and gave him a set of underwear, a suit, a pair of footwear and an overcoat lined with fox fur. Many Anglican curates would have been glad to receive such gifts on ordination, as we know from Barbara Pym. Time in Powers of Ten by G. t'Hooft and S. Vandoren is a very different kind of book [23]. “We would like you to discover our world as we see it: fascinating and remarkable at every conceivable timescale. Every unit of time is unique. Every level


showcases enthralling phenomena. In other words, our book comprises a series of independent short portrayals and illustrations of phenomena that manifest themselves across various periods of time, from the blink of an eye to a blue moon”. Part 1 takes us from events of the order of one second (100 s) to 1032 s, ‘To infinity and beyond, the Dark eternities’, while Part 2 explores the negative powers of 10 from 10 44 back to 100. This is a magpie collection of unrelated facts each group having in common the corresponding power of 10. Thus in 106.41 (this is the number of seconds in a 30-day month), we meet the rotational period of the sun, the sidereal and synodic months, the menstrual cycle, the half life of 51Cr and the duration of the first crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus. 1023 years is a distant milestone: “We can calculate how long it will take for a planet – such as Earth, which orbits the Sun – to lose so much energy that it plummets into its star: this would take approximately 1023 years. The end would come quickly, because the intensity of those gravitational waves will increase with its increasing velocity”. At the other extreme we have the Planck length (10 35 m), the size of the ball that exploded with a Big Bang, the mass of the proton (10 27 kg) and the period of hard x-rays (10 19 s corresponding to 0.3 Å). Under ultraviolet light, we are shown the geranium as seen by us humans and by insects that can see ultraviolet, while under infrared we meet a rattlesnake as well as a carbon monoxide molecule. In conclusion, this is a fascinating coffee-table book ranging from the unimaginably huge to the unimaginably tiny. The Royal Microscopical Society was founded in 1839 as the Microscopical Society of London. 17 years later, Queen Victoria granted it a Royal Charter and it added “Royal” to its name (just as the various seaside resorts include Regis in their names. Lyme, well known to readers of Jane Austen, became Lyme Regis as early as 1284, the year my College, Peterhouse, the oldest in Cambridge, was founded, while Bognor acquired Regis in 1929, when King George V went there to convalesce. It is said that when asked to approve “Regis”, the King replied “Oh, bugger Bognor!”, whereupon the city burgesses were informed that “the king has been graciously pleased to grant your request”. Possibly apocryphal but unforgettable.) The 150th anniversary of the RMS was marked by the publication of a historical account by G. l'E. Turner, God Bless the Microscope, but much has happened in the past quarter-century. In Moving Forward [24], John Hutchison has therefore attempted to “provide a brief outline of the developments in the RMS over the 25 years since 1989, … written from the standpoint of a practising microscopist (rather than a historian) with involvement in the Society during that time”. This record of the multifarious activities of the Society contains sections on Membership, Who does what?, Meetings and courses, Publications, Reaching out and Other outreach activities. Another section reflects on the future of microscopy in the UK and the RMS's contribution. If this does not sound too exciting, it is more than redeemed by the artwork. Every page has at least one colour photograph – sometimes spectacular micrographs, sometimes people (not forgetting Peter Fleming's bulldog Bumble), sometimes conference pictures. Anyone concerned about the shortage of girls in science should look at page 2, which shows a line-up of the RMS team at the 2012 electron microscopy conference: nine women and no men! Wiley have sent me Slide Rules by T. Nathans-Kelly and C.G. Nicometo [25], which I was expecting to be a nostalgic look at a ubiquitous analogue computer of pre-computer days. But in fact it is a guide to producing striking slides for your lectures. It is full of good sense and the illustrations include eye-catching slides as well as grim failures. The 13 chapters are grouped not into Parts but into Slide Rule #1,… Slide Rule #5. I fear that the speakers who need this book most are not those who will consult it but there is no doubt that if its message were heeded, fewer members of

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audiences would fall asleep – “Did you hear Duncan snoring during the sermon, Angus?” “Yes, it was outrageous, he woke us all up”. Electronmicroscopisationism. Not all ultramicroscopists are great stylists but, to judge from How to Write Badly or How to Succeed in the Social Sciences [26] by M. Billig (himself a social scientist), we are all models of excellence compared with those ‘scientists’. In this amusing and devastating condemnation of the appalling writing of all too many sociologists, Billig explains what has gone wrong and why. “If you were to become a real philosopher or a real sociologist, then you needed to use special, big professorial words (such as ‘habitus’, ‘acculturation’ and ‘para-doxal commitment’). Such big words were necessary, or so it is said, because the equivalent small ones, that non-professsorial speakers might use, were too imprecise and too unacademic – just too plain ordinary – for the professors”. And undergraduate essays are judged by their use of such language: “Prosser and Webb…sought to identify the linguistic features that distinguish successful from unsuccessful essays….Prosser and Webb claimed to have two approaches: ‘phenomenography’ and ‘systemic functional linguistics’. The concept of ‘the ideational metafunction’ comes from the latter perspective. Prosser and Webb examine their student essays in relation to two metafunctions: ‘the textual metafunction’ and the ‘ideational metafunction’.” I must not fill the columns of Ultramicroscopy with examples of how not to do it but Billig's book contains a warning that is applicable everywhere. “My analysis will have two threads: the first is to examine the conditions under which academic social scientists are working; and the second thread is to examine the linguistic nature of what we produce as writers of the social sciences. I will be suggesting that the two threads are connected. The first part of the argument will be familiar to anyone working in higher education today: academics work in an increasingly commercial culture, as universities, disciplines and individuals compete economically. In this competitive culture, it has become second nature to promote oneself and one's work. The second part of the argument may not make for comfortable reading: this culture of competition and self-promotion is seeping into the content of our academic writings. This is a culture in which success and boasting seem to go hand in hand. When we write, we are constantly boasting about our approaches, our concepts, our theories, our ways of doing social sciences and what these products can achieve. It is boast after boast, but we scarcely notice that we are writing like academic advertisers and that we are training our students to do likewise. And we boast of our big words which have become part of the product portfolios that we promote.” Naming no names, I have encountered this tendency in a Nobel prizewinner not far from our own subject.

5. Interference Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master-spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life. John Milton, Areopagitica A great attraction of Young-type Interferences with Electrons – Basics and Theoretical Challenges in Molecular Collision Systems by F. Frémont is that it admits frankly that “no complete theory exists in the case of electron experiments following atomic collisions” [27]. The whole book is most unusual and many fundamental questions about interference are raised and dissected. Chapter 1, ‘Photon interferences: history and fundamental aspects’ tells us about Young, Michelson and Morley and the ‘Characteristics of interference’. Frémont's account of Grimaldi gives a good idea of the

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flavour of the book: “A real revolution occurred with the discovery of diffraction phenomena by Francesco Maria Grimaldi in the middle of the seventeenth century. Grimaldi let sunlight into a completely darkened room, through a very small slit. He inserted an opaque rod into the cone of light thus produced, and observed the shadow cast on a screen located behind the rod. He first noted that the size of the shadow was much greater than what rectilinear projection would have predicted. The shadow was bordered by alternatively bright and dark bands (fringes). This experiment contradicted the notion of an exclusively rectilinear passage of light, and created the possibility of a new mode of transmission. Diffraction constituted the first evidence of the fluid nature of light. However, Grimaldi did not discuss the notion of periodicity in the appearance of fringes”. ‘Interferences with the massive particles’ are then introduced: neutrons, atoms, small molecules, large molecules and clusters and Bose–Einstein condensates each occupy a section. In chapter 3, we meet ‘Electron interference using macroscopic and nanoscopic interferometers’, and are introduced to much esoteric information. Next, ‘Young-type electron interferences using single-electron sources’ considers the difficulty of obtaining new information about the mechanism of interference. “In 2004, two theoreticians proposed and described an original experiment in order to observe Young-type double-slit interference patterns using electrons passing one-by-one through a nanoscale interferometer. The first excitation is provided by a molecular H2 beam colliding on fully stripped He2 þ ions. The He2 þ ion captures both H2 electrons in a doubly excited state, namely the 2l2l' state. Then the He atom becomes de-excited by Auger effect, producing electrons in any direction, whereas H22+ separates into two protons. The electrons that are emitted in the direction of the protons scatter on them. The protons play the role of the slits, and interferences occur. To summarize, in this experiment, H2 plays the roles of both the excitatory agent and the interferometer.” The final chapter offers ‘A theoretical description of Young-type interferences following Auger electron emission’ and ends with ‘A semi-classical view of interferences: “In the last section we saw the details of how autoionisation theory using the Final State Interaction approximation does not reproduce the experimental angular distribution of emitted electrons. The path interference model, based on the difference between the various paths taken by the electrons, reproduces the experimental angular distribution, but is unable to give the energy distribution of the electrons at a given detection angle. In addition, this model assumes that the electrons are ejected at an average distance determined by the lifetime of the Auger structure. In other words, the exponential variation of electron emission is not taken into account. Because no quantum approach exists at present to treat this complex problem, a semi-classical approach was taken. The idea for the following treatment originated from macroscopic scale experiments performed a few years ago. In the experiment, a droplet of silicon oil falls on a vertically vibrated bath of the same fluid. Under specific conditions, the droplet becomes self-propelled and moves indefinitely on the liquid surface, with a constant velocity, generating waves. This moving droplet, dressed with the wave-packet it emits, the authors named a ‘walker’. The walker is thus constituted of a corpuscle and a wave. Neither the wave nor corpuscular aspects can exist separately. If the wave disappears, the walker stops and the droplet dilutes in the oil solution. If, on the contrary, the droplet disappears, then the wave vanishes. Let us imagine that individual droplets ‘walk’ and cross a slit. When passing through the slit, both corpuscular and wave aspects remain. Going into further detail, the droplet trajectories can be followed individually… The corpuscular-wave association gave us the idea to build a model resembling the one described above.

Since the probability amplitude from quantum mechanics did not give the expected results, a semi-classical model was constructed, using the corpuscular and wave nature of an electron. In contrast with the above model, however, this one is first based on the corpuscular aspect and then on the wave behaviour of the electron, meaning that each aspect is independently treated”. This highly unusual book deserves careful and critical reading. Strongly recommended.

6. Light It’s all been done before but not the way I do it. Eva Tanguay, Queen of Vaudeville Progress in Optics has reached its 59th volume, all edited by E. Wolf [28]. The five long chapters cover Active optical metamaterials (S. Wuestner and O. Hess), Spontaneous parametric downconversion in nonlinear layered structures (J. Peřina), Spatial heterodyne Fourier-transform waveguide spectrometers (A.V. Velasco and 3 co-authors), Precursors and dispersive pulse dynamics, a century after the Sommerfeld–Brillouin theory: Part I. The original theory (N.A. Cartwright and K.E. Oughstun) and The role of coherence in image formation in holographic microscopy (R. Chmelik and 6 co-authors). Although electron holography is barely mentioned in the last of these, some sections such as the account of coherence are of general interest. Incidentally electron holography is dismissed in much too summary a fashion: “Holographic record was proposed by Gabor (1948) as a possible way to increase the magnification of electron microscopes. A hologram recorded by an electron beam was intended to be reconstructed by a light wave. The ratio of the wavelengths promised [sic] the theoretical magnification by up to five orders. However, the experimental verification showed that optical aberrations, which resulted from a hologram reconstruction using a different wavelength than for recording, led to a considerable reduction of resolving power. For this reason Gabor's idea was abandoned in electron microscopy”. This is highly misleading. Moreover, Gabor would have deplored the use of the word “magnification” and we must all object to that last sentence! There is also much for the general reader in the chapter on Sommerfeld–Brillouin theory. After summarising the findings of Sommerfeld and Brillouin, the authors tell us that “The intent of this review article is not only in recognition of the centenary anniversary of these seminal publications by Sommerfeld and Brillouin, but also as a reminder that these historic results regarding the relativistic upper bound to the signal velocity remain valid in spite of the persistence of claims, both theoretical and experimental, regarding superluminal pulse velocities, all based on the ill-founded group velocity approximation originally due to Havelock….Part II of this two-part paper presents the modern, uniform asymptotic description of the Sommerfeld–Brillouin theory”. Anyone interested in digital image processing is likely to have a copy of one of the four editions of W.K. Pratt's Digital Imaging Processing on his shelves. But “In 2010, it became evident to me that the subject of digital image processing was migrating from a graduate course to a junior or senior level course as students became proficient in mathematical background earlier in their college education. This observation became the motivation for the development of an introductory textbook on the subject of digital image processing” [29]. There must have been a dip in mathematical teaching as my generation could cheerfully have coped with much of Pratt's earlier book. A first part, Continuous image characterisation’ reminds us that real images are (almost) continuous functions while Part 2, ‘Digital image characterization’, takes us from continuous functions to their discrete counterparts.


Part 3, ‘Discrete two-dimensional linear processing’, introduces the various transforms and concludes with ‘Linear processing techniques’. This brings us to image processing proper: ‘Image improvement’, ‘Image analysis’ and ‘Image and video compression’. Most of the subjects covered are explained at length, with many examples. One disappointing section is that concerned with mathematical morphology, where there is no mention of the many recent texts on the subject (though the invaluable article by R.M. Haralick, S.R. Steinberg and X. Zhang in IEEE Trans. PAMI-9, 1987, 532 is cited) and above all, no mention of image algebra. The latter is of the greatest help for students who can thereby perceive the close relation between certain linear operations and morphological operations. For those well grounded in linear algebra, the matrix representations of the morphological operations are likewise very illuminating. I make no apology for drawing attention to Phase in Optics by V. Peřinová, A. Lukš and J. Peřina, even though it was published many years ago [30]. I missed it at the time, probably because it appeared in a Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics. We can be confident that any book with J. Peřina among its authors will be a valuable contribution to coherence studies and Phase in Optics more than confirms this. The introduction tells us what to expect: “Classical picture of the phase resting on the assumption of strong optical fields, well produced by means of lasers, is drastically changed when low-intensity optical beams are considered. In this case quantum statistical properties of such beams are substantial for their complete description and phase-space methods of quantum statistical physics can be employed”. The authors then lead us through ‘Phase in classical and non-linear optics’, ‘Phase space description of light field’, ‘Phase in quantum optics’ and Phase-shift measurements and phase dependence’. The brief ‘Conclusions’ summarise what was and was not then known. Certainly there has been much subsequent research on the subjects of this book but as an authoritative assessment of an important research area it has not lost its relevance. One could be forgiven for thinking that geometrical optics has had its day but no, P.D. Lin has written New Computation Methods for Geometrical Optics [31], which is indeed very different from the many earlier books on the subject (I had it in mind when choosing the epigraph for this Section). His object is to create a tool for computing “the first- and second-order derivative matrices of various optical quantities” based on homogeneous coordinates. Many potential readers will regret the absence of any introduction to these, with which they cannot be blamed for unfamiliarity. Their use in projective geometry used to be part of the A-level mathematics syllabus in the UK but this has, I believe, been dropped so the addition of a fourth element (typically 1) to the three position coordinates in 3-D space or a zero to “directional vectors” will come as a surprise. Another unfortunate feature is the choice of unconventional terminology and notation; thus matrix elements are referred to as components, the optic axis in cartesian coordinates is the y-axis and the refractive index is denoted by ξ (μ is an angle). Certainly braces are often called curly brackets but it was not necessary to call parentheses “double rounded brackets”. Admittedly, all these and similar departures from convention are trivial but when an author is attempting to convert his readers to novel ideas, it is wise to keep the landscape as familiar as possible. Lin begins with a very short introduction to notation before embarking on ‘Skew-ray tracing at boundary surfaces’, which is an essential basis for what follows. Chapter 3, ‘Modeling an optical system’, describes the rays needed for further calculation and considers spot diagrams, point-spread functions and modulation-transfer functions. It is only in Chapter 4 that we meet ‘Paraxial optics for axis-symmetrical systems’, in which the familiar cardinal elements and the lens equation emerge. After this, Lin evaluates ‘The Jacobian matrix of a ray with respect to system

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variable vector’ (Chapter 5) and ‘Point spread function and modulation transfer function’ (Chapter 6). In Chapter 7, he turns to a major preoccupation of optical designers, ‘Optical path length and its Jacobian matrix with respect to system variable vector’. The final chapter considers ‘The wavefront shape, irradiance, and caustic surface in an optical system’ with lengthy discussion of the Hessian matrix. Lin provides explicit formulae for most of the operations involved and numerous examples, well illustrated. Even so, it is not easy reading – I was reminded of my struggles to grasp the essence of Thomas Smith's papers and of my first encounter with Herzberger's diapoints. More explanation would have been very welcome, especially in view of the author's claim that “It [homogeneous coordinate notation] will be one of the important mathematical tools for automatic optical design”. Ultra-realistic Imaging, Advanced Techniques in Analogue and Digital Colour Holography by H. Bjelkhagen and D. BrothertonRatcliffe is a full account of holographic display [32]. Although the more formal chapters are aimed at specialists, the earlier historical chapters make fascinating reading for anyone interested in such methods. Chapter 1, ‘Ultra-realistic imaging and its historical origin in display holography’, first reminds us that “Long before holography came into being, there existed a colour photographic recording technique known as Lippmann photography, the roots of which can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century. During that period, Gabriel Lippmann began experimenting with colour photography in France. His work concerned optical wavefront reconstruction through the recording of standing waves in a volume medium. Lippmann's photographic recording technique was similar to the then unknown technique of holography; but it was not terribly effective as a viable commercial solution to colour photography at the time, because very long exposure times were required for practical use. This was due to the requirement of high resolving power, which could only be provided by materials of very low light sensitivity. Lippmann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention in 1908. His technique was remarkable for its capability to record colour in a photograph but also for the way in which this was accomplished: this was a brand new idea – the recording of spectral information interferometrically in an ultrafine resolution material. It was this idea of recording interference fringes throughout the depth of the emulsion that Denisyuk used … when he introduced the technique of recording reflection holograms in the early 1960s”. Bragg, Boersch and Zernike are mentioned in passing before we come to ‘Early holography’, where the work of Gabor, Leith and Upatnieks and, briefly, of Rogers is summarised (sadly, Juliet Rogers who had a remarkably bad glass lens constructed in order to test Gabor's original proposal, does not get a mention). The remainder of the chapter summarises the contributions to display holography of numerous groups in the USA, Europe and Australia. Chapter 2 is likewise very readable for its account of Lippmann photography: “Gabriel Jonas Lippmann (1845–1921) was born in Bonnevoic [sic], Luxembourg of French parents, on 16 August 1845. He entered the Normal school in 1867 and studied in Heidelberg, Germany, where he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1873. In 1875, he moved to Paris and became a professor of mathematical physics at the Sorbonne in 1883, a member of the Institute in 1886 and an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1884. Previously, he had worked on thermodynamics, electricity and capillarity. At the Sorbonne, he was obliged to start teaching acoustics and optics, and it was in this way that he became interested in the theory of light and, in particular colour theory. As early as 1886, he had developed a general theory of recording colours as standing waves in a lightsensitive emulsion. However, most of his time was devoted to perfecting a suitable recording emulsion for his experiments. This indicates that he had already developed the interference theory long before the result of the Wiener experiment was published [in

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1890]. Lippmann's work on what has come to be known as interferential photography or interference colour photography was published in several papers. On 2 February 1891, Lippmann announced at the Académie de [sic] Sciences in Paris that he had succeeded in recording a true-colour spectrum. In addition, the recording was permanent and could be observed in full daylight. A little more than one year later… Lippmann gave a second presentation at the Académie de Sciences. This time he displayed four colour photographs of different objects: a stained glass window in several colours, a bunch of flags and a dish of oranges, a red poppy and a green parrot. Later, at a photographic exhibition in Paris, he displayed a landscape with a grey building surrounded with green foliage and blue sky. Lippmann developed the first proper theory of the recording of monochromatic and polychromatic spectra. He applied Fourier mathematics to optics, which was a new approach at that time.… Notwithstanding [various drawbacks], 100-year-old Lippmann photographs are extremely beautiful, and the fact that the colours are so well preserved in these photographs indicates something rather interesting about their archival properties”. For friends and admirers of the late Maria Petrou, Pattern Recognition Letters celebrates her life and work in Vol. 48 (2014).

7. Some conference proceedings The image builds up as we wait Our task but to interpret them Brief life that has this modest fate So with electrons, so with men! A. Howie It is more and more difficult to do justice to many of the major congresses when organisers have abandoned printed proceedings in favour of a virtual record of uncertain longevity and varying degrees of user-unfriendliness. I therefore begin with those oldfashioned editors who have produced real proceedings. First EMAG 2013 the biennial meeting of the Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group of the Institute of Physics, held in York in September 2013. The Proceedings are available in the open-access Journal of Physics: Conference Series and in printed form [33]. The opportunity was taken of celebrating Archie Howie's 80th birthday (two years before Harold Rose's, which is to be fêted in Ulm on the morrow of the birthday itself and in Kasteel Vaalsbroek in April 2015, two months later) so we have not only a paper by Howie on ‘Addressing Coulomb's singularity, nanoparticle recoil and Johnson's noise’ but also two poems by him. The first concludes with the epigraph to this section. The second echoes the fact that the conference banquet was held in the Railway Museum and ends thus: Past heroes of microscopy we may recall And wish they'd join us in this railway dining hall. Bede's little sparrow may be scared to fly in here But none could block the Flying Scotsman's wild career Should it steam through with faces pressed against the glass Glimpse Ruska, Castaing, Cosslett, Crewe in the first class! The level of these EMAG meetings has always been impressive and the 2013 cru is no exception. In the Howie symposium (8 contributions) E.D. Boyes and P.L. Gai describe aberration-corrected environmental STEM, N. Tanaka and 7 co-authors summarise the ‘Development of an environmental high voltage electron microscope and its application to nano and bio-materials’. In STEM and Modelling, L.M. Brown expunges diffraction contrast and suggests that HAADF stands for Howie's Adaptation of Annular Dark Field. Among the ten other papers are ‘An in-house

developed annular bright-field detector’ (L. Lari and 5 co-authors), ‘How flat is your detector?’ (K.E. Macarthur et al.), ‘High resolution exit wave reconstruction from a diffraction pattern using Gaussian basis decomposition’ (K.B. Borisenko and A.I. Kirkland) and ‘Application of low energy STEM with in-lens cold FE-SEM’ (Y. Orai and 5 co-authors). In the section on Spectroscopy and Analysis, we meet “Towards sub-10 meV energy resolution STEM–EELS’”, by O. L. Krivanek and 5 co-authors, ‘Analytical transmission electron microscopy in the third dimension’ by D. Sudfield et al., ‘Electron microscopy reveals unique microfossil preservation in 1-millionyear-old lakes’.’ by M. Saunders and 3 co-authors. This sounded intriguing but what were these creatures? Or were they plants, we are not even told whether they were fauna or flora – technically impressive but lacking human interest. Most of the other papers are classified as Structural materials, Functional materials, Biomaterials or Nanomaterials but there is also a section on Advances in electron microscope imaging. Here we find ‘Direct detectors for electron microscopy’ (R.N. Clough et al.), ‘TEM imaging and application of thin-film magnetic rings for phase plates’ (C.J. Edgcombe and J.C. Loudon), ‘Helium ion microscopy and energy-selective scanning electron microscopy’ (C. Rodenburg and 3 coauthors), ‘A high-efficiency DF-STEM detector’ (T. Kaneko and 4 co-authors), ‘Exit wave reconstruction of radiation-sensitive materials from low-dose data’ (C. Huang et al.), ‘The influence of emitter conditioning on the performance of a tungsten /111S cold field emission gun operating at 300 kV’ (J.M. Ross et al.) and ‘The energy spread of a LaB6 cathode operated in the virtual source mode’ (T. Wells and M. El-Gomati). It was pleasant to see P.B. Hirsch's name among the authors of ‘A dissociation mechanism for the [aþ c] dislocation in GaN’ (P.D. Nellist and 11 co-authors). Note that the next EMAG meeting will be held jointly with the Royal Microscopical Society's Microscopy Microscience Conference in Manchester, 29 June to 2 July 2015. These RMS meetings are held annually but proceedings have not been issued in the past. A novel feature of the 2014 conference is two EMAG sessions, on ‘Advances in EM instrumentation’ and ‘Microscopy of energy materials’. The MMC materials science sessions covered Surfaces, In situ and dynamic microscopy, Biomaterials, Nanoscale analysis and characterisation, Functional and nanostructured materials and 3D imaging in life and materials sciences using electron and x-rays. I can give only a few examples. D. Chappard and 3 co-authors use nanotomography, BSE-SEM and Raman microspectroscopy “to characterise the interface between bone and nacre in the first metatarsus of sheep implanted with orthopaedic devices”. A. Lewis and 3 co-authors propose a non-iterative exact solution to the inverse problem in far-field imaging based on heavy-atom restoration of phase with super-resolution (HARPS). T. Kaneko and 4 co-authors have developed an efficient hybrid DF-STEM detector in which a powder is deposited on a single-crystal substrate. “The luminescent quantum efficiency of the hybrid scintillator was measured to be twice as large as that of the single-crystal-type detector at 60 kV and was about 8 times higher than that of the powder-type detector at 300 kV”. T. Groves has used very low energy FE-SEM (o1 kV) to obtain “information on the thickness, topology and overall quality of supported graphene oxide layers”. In ‘Schottky field emission SEMs – multifunctional tool for biological applications’, B. Lencová et al. from Tescan summarise “recent trends in SEM instrumentation, new electron optical designs to improve SEM resolution [and also survey] new detectors and analyzers that can be integrated with SEM”. A coherence-controlled holographic microscope has also been developed by Tescan (T. Slabý and 7 co-authors ).The pixellated detector is coming into use as the natural extension of quadrant and other segmented detectors in STEM; H. Yang and P.D. Nellist discuss its merits in detail. G. Bárcena González and 7 co-authors show that HAADF images can be usefully enhanced by employing the techniques of


super-resolution. F. Torres and 4 co-authors, all from the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, tell us that “The marketing of counterfeit jewellery items is a problem that affects all societies in the world, providing a lucrative business for numerous criminal organisations”. They show that counterfeits can be identified by SEM-EDXFIB without damaging genuine items and that the results are easily recognised by “non-experts”, such as “courts, judges, prosecutors”. Finally, we mention ‘Analysis of multi-dimensional datasets in electron microcopy: challenges and opportunities’ by T. Ostasevicius and 5 co-authors. There was also a vast commercial exhibition with workshops. An example to all conference organisers is the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa, which produces nicely printed proceedings of their annual meetings on glossy paper with some colour. The 2013 edition [34] is well up to standard, beginning as usual with the Boris Balinsky and John Matthews Memorial lectures. These are delivered this year by A. Warley, who described the use of x-ray microanalysis, HAADF, STEM and EFTEM in nanomedicine and A.K. Datye, who uses electrons and photons to unravel the working state of heterogeneous catalysts. Forty papers in the life sciences and 48 in materials science occupy the rest of the volume. The distinction is not sharp, though, as a study of the wrappings of a mummified cat are in the materials section. For a physicist, however, the more exotic papers are as always in the life sciences. I have no idea what variety of hibiscus grows in my garden but if by any chance it is H. surattensis or H. sabdariffa, it is not just decorative but is “known for [its] therapeutic properties among Indian and African traditional healers” (K. Raghu et al.). Thus “Calyx extracts [of H. sabdariffa] were shown to be equally effective in lowering blood pressure in moderate hypertension patients, as the recommended medication, Captopril” – good news for the heavily indebted French health service. This is followed by ’‘Distribution and structure of taste buds in the emu’ (whose sperm appears a few pages later) by M.R. Crole et al. “The sense of taste in birds is an important motivator for feeding as well as initial food selection. Birds possess a very low number of taste buds in comparison to other vertebrates. The sense of taste in ratites has largely been speculative. However, in the emu, taste buds have recently been identified and are located in the tongue root, oropharyngeal floor and proximal oesophagus. These studies constitute the first putative report of a sense of taste in ratites”. They conclude that “the relatively few taste buds present in the emu oropharynx would mainly function in distinguishing bitter taste” – not really a fine palate therefore. Moving on, we learn that “The Nile crocodile is an important keystone reptile for aquatic biodiversity in Africa and specifically for the Olifants River in South Africa. The rearing of crocodiles also constitutes a valuable niche farming enterprise in South Africa and Zimbabwe with the Nile crocodile being one of the top commercially utilised species of crocodiles in the world. Whereas sperm morphology has been studied in the Australian freshwater crocodile, American alligator & Siamese crocodile, no information is currently available on sperm structure in the Nile crocodile” (E. Van Wilpe and J.T. Soley). And I cannot refrain from mentioning the amazing behaviour of ragged-tooth shark embryos. This shark “appears to be the only lamnoid aplacental species that utilises oophagy and an associated strategy of interuterine cannibalism as a source of nutrition for their developing embryos.… While still encapsulated, dentition of the embryos develops (40 –60 mm). This enables them to break the capsule and later cannibalise their siblings…. It appears that dentition appears in C. taurus free-floating embryos as small as 22 mm total length in SW Indian Ocean waters, smaller than reported elsewhere. This may be a consequence of RTS inhabiting warmer regions, but also may serve as an important growth and survival mechanism. Early ‘escape’ from encapsulation would allow developing embryos to actively begin cannibalising their siblings thereby reducing

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competition for food in utero at a much earlier stage than hitherto reported” (K. Naidoo and 6 co-authors). Older readers may be reminded of the Beverley sisters singing Triplets: “And if I had a gun/Then I would shoot the other two/And only be one”. Another series of meetings with exemplary proceedings are the annual conferences of the Japanese Society of Microscopy, which routinely fill a supplement to Kenbikyo, the journal distributed to members of the Society. These are very large meetings but the proceedings are kept within reasonable bounds by a double-column format, each abstract occupying one column. The 2014 volume [35] consists of 245 pages of abstracts plus 81 pages of programme and a few more for the indexes. Most of the abstracts are of course in Japanese but the titles are always given in English and the authors’ names are transliterated. I cannot go into too much detail but there are many papers on very recent developments in electron microscopy. The following list gives some idea of the contents. M. Kuwahara and co-authors discuss ‘Coherence of spin-polarized electron beam in SP-TEM’ and ‘Generation of picosecond pulse beam in pulse SP-TEM’. Y. Nagatani and 6 co-authors have developed a 500 kV linac TEM. H. Sawada and 3 co-authors make ‘Ultra-low-voltage observation with Cs and Cc correction’; with 6 co-authors, he resolves ‘45 pm with aberration-corrected STEM’. N. Shibata has developed and applied a “SAAF detector for atomic-resolution STEM’ while T. Sasaki and 3 co-authors evaluate the ‘probe size in 15 kV STEM imaging’. H. Akima and T. Yoshida describe ‘Auto-tuning of astigmatism and coma aberrations using through-focus Ronchigrams’. M. Mukai and 10 co-authors have performed ‘High resolution EELS using a monochromated and aberration-corrected STEM’. K. Harada et al. analyse ‘Vortex beams by fork-shaped gratings in terms of their opening sizes and shapes’. U. Ikeda performs ‘Differential phase contrast electron microscopy with an A–B effect phase plate’ and H. Minoda and 4 co-authors tell us about ‘Phase contrast scattering transmission electron microscopy’. There are also papers on such topics as annular bright field imaging, image alignment, electron tomography and traditional electron optics. Before quitting the JSM, I must just say a word about 2013. For some reason, the abstracts were not printed in Kenbikyo that year; instead, participants were given a USB key, which contains the most user-friendly virtual proceedings I have ever encountered. Everything is linked so it is extremely easy to find subjects of interest and move among the corresponding abstracts. It is a model for any future proceedings editor (though a book is of course better!). The Springer Proceedings in Physics includes the International Multidisciplinary Microscopy Conference: Proceedings of InterM, held in Antalya in October 2013 [36]. This does not have a section on instrumentation. Part I is concerned with applications of microscopy in the physical sciences and Part II with those in the biological sciences. Most of the papers are mainly of interest to specialists but the last paper, ‘Fruit trees physiology and breeding programmes research using microscopic technology’ by K. Arzani can expect a wider readership. The author tells us about pistachio orchard management, the pollen of Mary, Shengeh, Zard, Roghani and Fishomi olives and of eleven cultivars of Iranian apricots from the Apricot Collection Orchard in Qazvin. Fourteen cultivars of pomegranate were likewise classified. Those of us who have had the good fortune to visit Iran will know that there are extensive arid areas and so “The importance of stomatal density and its role in the pistachio trees gas exchange subjected to drought was studied and followed by evaluation of the existence of trichomes around the stomata in some pistachio rootstocks….Anatomical differences may be useful as an initial screening method for classifying pistachio rootstocks of drought resistance”. Seekers of further information will need to consult the Iranian Journal of Horticultural Science (in Persian). I hope that organisers of future

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(electron) microscopy conferences will consider publishing in these Springer Proceedings in Physics or in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series, thereby ensuring a reasonable lifetime for the record of their meetings. Physics Procedia is another good home for them. The XVth International Conference on Electron Microscopy is being held in Kraków as I write this – there are no formal proceedings but the papers presented will be printed in International Journal of Materials Research, Solid-state Phenomena or Folia Histochemica & Cytobiologica [37]. While awaiting these full publications, the Program and Abstracts Book (323 pages) gives a vivid snapshot of what was clearly an excellent and truly international meeting, with participants from all over Europe and a few from further afield. Naturally, Poland is extremely well represented. The themes of the meeting are ‘Instrumentation and computing methods in electron microscopy’, ‘HRTEM and electron holography’, ‘Materials science applications’, ‘Life science applications’, ‘Analytical electron microscopy’, ‘Electron tomography’ and ‘Advances in SEM’. 124 posters, largely from Polish laboratories, complement the oral presentations. Among these posters is a most encouraging message from P.W.J. van Myk and H. Grobler of Bloemfontein in South Africa. In ‘Computing methods to enhance out-of-focus images: the scientific acceptability’, they ask whether it is right to enhance poor images if you cannot afford to buy modern equipment. “The growth of biological organisms may take several months”, they observe. “If microscope examinations deliver poor results and low quality images, experiments must be repeated at great cost and loss of time. Enhancing the images delivered excellent results and it is thus time- and cost-effective to improve results rather than repeating experiments, which may still again produce poor results. The image enhancements in all cases did not add or remove any data, but only enriched it. Most imaging programs are freely available on the Internet. However, even investing in commercial software such as deconvolution software at a negligible cost fraction of an expensive electron microscope, is worth the financial layout”. A gloomy keynote paper by A. Marszalek asks ‘Is electron microscopy still in use for daily medical practice?’ His paper is a stalwart rearguard action but he can hear the bell tolling. “Although around the world, still there are many EM facilities [in medicine], according to high costs of the equipment as well as a need of expertise for proper diagnosis, the future is unclear”. But “in some fields of medicine there is still a place for ongoing use of EM as a tool, that couldn't be replaced by any other technology. The best example is nephrology, in which the diagnosis of glomerunephritis couldn't be done properly without samples evaluated by transmission electron microscopy. In other cases EM could be used in process of diagnosis of rare diseases or could be helpful in solving unusual presentation of diagnostic entity. This could be well illustrated by the use of TEM in dermatology, infectious disease as well as in oncological pathology or diagnosis of immotile cilia syndrome”. The proceedings of the preceding conference (EM 2011) were published by Trans Tech Publication but I have not succeeded in extracting a copy from them. SCANNING MICROSCOPIES 2014 is recorded in Proc. SPIE [38]. Among the 28 papers is Part 3 of ‘Does your SEM tell the truth?’ by M.T. Postek et al. – this year, vibration and drift are the culprits. Y. Ominami and 4 co-authors describe SEM observations at atmospheric pressure and from the same group comes ‘A novel transmission electron imaging technique for observation of biological samples on a plate’. The original feature of the atmospheric SEM work is that the specimen is no longer in direct contact with the membrane that forms the wall of the environmental cell. Several authors discuss multi-beam SEM and L. Muray et al. consider ‘the limits of miniature electron column technology’: “While [the present] performance is suitable for most applications, previous studies

of the electron optics of miniature electrostatic lenses show better performance should be attainable under ‘ideal conditions’. In practice, achieving these conditions is very challenging…”. Forensic science has always been a feature of these conferences and here, A. Knijnenberg et al. describe their ‘First experiences with 2D-mXRF analysis of gunshot residue on garment, tissue and cartridge cases’. And in ‘A tale of three trials: from science to junk science’, B.R. Burnett illustrates the risk of uncritical dependence on gunshot residue samples. This proceedings volume is much more complete than last year's, a very welcome improvement. Papers from the two principal Russian meetings are still published in Izvestiya Ross. Akad. Nauk (Seriya Fizika) and in English in Bull. Russ. Acad. Sci. Phys. [39] The proceedings of the 18th Symposium on Scanning Electron Microscopy and Analytical Methods of Investigation used in Solid-state Physics (SEM-2013) includes 31 papers, several of which deal with instrumentation: ‘Modifying a low voltage electron probe system’ (V.V. Kazmiruk et al.), ‘Use of nanoscale Hall effect sensor to measure the tip field of a magnetic cantilever’ (O.V. Kononenko and 5 co-authors), ‘Coefficient of detector collection’ (O.D. Potapkin and A.A. Melnikov), ‘Characteristics of dielectric film charging as a function of thickness under electron irradiation’ (A.V. Gostev and 4 co-authors) and ‘Optimisation of annular semiconductor detectors of back-scattered electrons in SEM’ (S.V. Zaitsev and 3 co-authors). The proceedings of the 25th Russian Conference on Electron Microscopy held in 2014 should appear in Izvestiya and BRAS in 2015. Before leaving the printed proceedings let me just encourage you to watch out for those of the 9th Conference on Charged Particle Optics, held in Brno in August–September 2014, which will appear as a supplement to Microscopy and Microanalysis in 2015. The tenth CPO conference will be held in Key West, FL in 2018. And now to the more ephemeral proceedings. Those of the annual meeting of the MSA are reduced to a USB key and free web access for members of the society – outsiders have to pay [40]. The Oliver Wells Memorial Symposium on the scanning electron microscope includes enjoyable biographical information and reminiscences by D.C. Joy and L. Gignac and by R.F.W. Pease – you may be interested to know that Oliver was a grandson of the novelist H.G. Wells (a notorious womaniser) and a brave cave-diver; today, tourists visit Wookey Hole but in the 1950s, Oliver swam through the submerged passages wearing a home-made breathing kit built from war-surplus components. The following sessions are of interest to ultramicroscopists: Electron holography at the atomic scale and the nanoscale (the difference is not specified); Advances in imaging and spectroscopy in STEM; Cs-correctors: current state and ongoing developments; Advances in in-situ microscopy; 3-D imaging and microanalysis; Frontiers in analytical TEM–STEM. There is also a Gérard Simon Memorial Symposium. In the holography section, there are contributions by H. Lichte, D. Shindo and Z. Akase and K. Harada and H. Kasai among many others. S. Pollard and Y. Zhu describe magnetic imaging with a novel hole-free phase plate. Y. Hashimoto and 5 co-authors consider the interpretation of energy-filtered BSE images at ultra-low voltage and indeed, low-voltage microscopy is well represented. Under aberration correction, we meet N. Dellby and 6 co-authors on tuning high-order aberrations, N. Kepaptsoglou and 4 co-authors on the stability of corrected STEMs and P. Hartel and 4 coauthors on ‘Proper phase contrast imaging in aberration-corrected TEM’ as well as papers from the many American laboratories now equipped with aberration-corrected instruments. The correction of TEM aberrations by means of a diffraction grating (M. Linck and 3 co-authors) is described here as well as at Prague [39]. J.G. Wen and 3 co-authors have a most interesting paper on amplitudecontrast imaging, though with no discussion of the source of the contrast. N. Shibata et al. describe progress with their segmented annular all-field STEM detector.


The recent International Microscopy Conference held in Prague (IMC-18) is likewise not recorded in print [41]. The abstracts are, however, available open-access at www.microscopy.cz/proceed ings/all.html and participants were given a copy in the form of a USB key from which the entire abstracts book (almost 4990 pages in all) can be downloaded as a pdf and searched at leisure. There is an author index so that you can see what your friends (and others) talked about but the names are not linked to the abstracts: you need to use ‘Find’ to read them. You also need to note the pdf page number (the abstracts are not numbered) if you wish to print an abstract, to prevent your printer from embarking on the full 4990 pages! The online version does have links from the session titles to the corresponding abstracts. After this technical digression, what do we find in the abstracts? As usual, three large Parts on Instrumentation and Technology, Materials Science and Life Science. The first of these contains long sections on aberration-corrected TEMs and STEMs with many novelties. M. Linck and 3 co-authors exploit the fact that aberration correctors massage the electron wavefront just like phase plates. They use a specially designed transparent diffraction grating to remove the unwanted phase shift associated with spherical aberration. Uhlemann and 4 coauthors pursue their investigations of thermal magnetic field noise, which counteracts the beneficial effect of Cc correctors. They “discuss scaling rules and why hexapole-type aberration correctors are collecting less image spread from thermal magnetic noise than quadrupole–octupole-type Cc-correctors”. Low voltage attracted several papers. Coufalová and 4 co-authors (from Delong Instruments and Sweden) describe a low-voltage mini TEM with a magnetostatic objective and electrostatic condenser and projector lenses and a single-crystal fluorescent screen coupled to glass lenses with a high numerical aperture; it can operate at 25 kV in TEM and 15 or 10 kV in STEM. Houben and 4 co-authors have performed ‘Low-voltage and energy-filtered chromatic aberrationcorrected high-resolution TEM on the PICO instrument’ in the Forschungszentrum Jülich. Wang and 4 co-authors are moving ‘Towards 4-D EEL spectroscopic scanning confocal electron microscopy (SCEM–EELS) optical sectioning on a Cc and Cs doublecorrected transmission electron microscope’; with chromatic correction, they find that “inelastically scattered electrons are simultaneously in-focus on the EELS CCD camera over the entire energy loss range”, which is not the case in the absence of Cc correction. M. Entrup and H. Kohl show that the aberrations introduced by the filter in spatially resolved EELS with an in-column omega filter can be corrected by image processing. This is only a tiny selection – holography, phase plates of all kinds, simulation, imaging modes are all present as well as applications; your favourites are easily found with the search tool. A major meeting with numerous papers of high quality and originality.

8. A few more According to Marc Prensky…, today’s average college student has spent fewer than 5,000 hours reading, yet more than 10,000 hours playing video games. A few other titles are also of potential ultramicroscopical interest. R. Barabash and G. Ice have edited a volume on Strain and Disloction Gradients from Diffraction – Spatially-resolved Local Structure and Defects [42]. J.R. Bowen, L.T. Kuhn, A. Hauch and P.S. Jorgensen have contributed Electron Microscopy Characterisation of Electrochemical Cells to one of the Springer Briefs series [43]. Beam Dynamics in High Energy Particle Accelerators is the subject of a book by A. Wolski [44]. In the Springer Theses is High-resolution Extreme Ultraviolet Microscopy by M.W. Zürch [45]. Advanced Electron Microscopy, edited by L.D. Francis, A. Mayoral and R.

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Arenal, is due in April 2015 [46]. World Scientific have assembled recent papers by A.H. Zewail in 4D Visualization of Matter; this will be covered next time [47]. Quite by chance, I have just learned that a book on Iris Runge [48] contains information about the early days of the electron microscope. More details next time.

9. Absent friends On 29 November, Professor Dr. Friedrich Lenz died at the age of 92. He was a major figure in the world of electron optics, especially in the post-war decades. Several generations of students in the University of Tübingen have good reason to be grateful to him for his clear and rigorous teaching and – at a later stage in their careers – for his perfect mastery of English, which was freely available to improve publications from the Institute für angewandte Physik. The Grivet–Lenz model of the axial magnetic induction of magnetic lenses, scattering models, and a very neat application of the Lorentz transform to convert the Aharonov–Bohm effect into an electrostatic effect are among the many reasons for remembering him. A few days later, on 4 December 2014, Jacques Cazaux, formerly professor at the University of Reims, died aged 80. I shall not say more about him here as a long tribute has been written by his friend Christian Colliex and can be read on the French microscopy website (www.sfmu.fr). Finally, I have just heard that W. Dieter Riecke died in 2014. His name is perpetuated in the Riecke–Ruska lens, a practical model of the condenser–objective originally proposed by Walter Glaser. He was also the author of many authoritative articles on magnetic lenses and of the magnificent chapter on magnetic lens design in the book Magnetic Electron Lenses.

References [1] N. Tanaka, Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy of Nanomaterials, Imperial College Press, London and World Scientific, Singapore, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-84816-789-6 (Price: d83). [2] AMTC Letters, International Journal of Advanced Microscopy and Theoretical Calculations. Japan Fine Ceramics Center, Nagoya. ISSN: 1882-9465. [3] K. Fujikawa, Y.A. Ono (Eds.), In Memory of Akira Tonomura, Physicist and Electron Microscopist. World Scientific, Singapore 2014. ISBN: 978-981-447288-3 Price: £84, cloth, 978-981-4472-89-0 Price: £45, paper [4] E. Bauer, Surface Microscopy with Low-energy Electrons, Springer, New York, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-4939-0934-6 (Price: €137.14, US$179, d117). [5] J. Thomas, T. Gemming, Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy, Springer, Berlin 2014. ISBN: 978-94-017-8600-3 (Price: €79.11, US$99, d67). [6] J. Kuo (Ed.), Electron Microscopy, Methods and Protocols, 3rd ed. Springer/ Humana, New York 2014. ISBN: 978-1-62703-775-4; ISSN: 1064-3745 (Price: €148, US$179, d126). Methods in Molecular Biology 1117. [7] I. Schmidt-Krey, Y. Cheng (Eds.), Electron Crystallography of Soluble and Membrane Proteins, Methods and Protocols. Springer/Humana, New York 2013. ISBN: 978-1-62703-175-2; ISSN: 1064-3745 (Price: €131.82, US$159, d112). Methods in Molecular Biology 955. [8] K.D. Sattler (Ed.), Fundamentals of Picoscience, CRC Press, Boca Raton 2014. ISBN: 978-1-46-650509-4. (Price: US$ 179.95, d114). [9] A. Ziegler, H. Graafsma, X.F. Zhang, J.W.M. Frenken (Eds.), In-situ Materials Characterization across Spatial and Temporal Scales, Springer, Berlin, 2014. ISBN: 978-3-642-45151-5 (Price: €137.14, US$179, d93.50). Springer Series in Materials Science, vol. 193. [10] C.S.S.R. Kumar (Ed.), Transmission Electron Microscopy Characterization of Nanomaterials, Springer, Heidelberg, 2014. ISBN: 978-3-642-38933-7 (Price: €262.69, US$339, d224.50). [11] C.S.S.R. Kumar (Ed.), Surface Science Tools for Nanomaterials Characterization, Springer, Heidelberg, 2015. ISBN: 978-3-662-44550-1 (Price: to be announced). [12] M. Sardela (Ed.), Practical Materials Characterization, Springer, New York, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-4614-9280-1 (Price: €105.49, US$129, d90). [13] D.-m. Tang, In situ Transmission Electron Microscopy Studies of Carbon Nanotube Nucleation Mechanism and Carbon Nanotubeclamped Metal Atomic Chains, Springer, Berlin, 2013). ISBN: 978-3-642-37258-2, ISSN: 290-5053 (Price: €105.49, US$129, d72).

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Stories behind a precious photo.

Volunteerism - the lifeblood of the CVMA.

Your best life: relationships - the lifeblood of a peaceful existence.

Laboratory training: Experimentation is science's lifeblood.

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum): a precious spice.

Stylized facts of intraday precious metals.

Biosorbents for recovery of precious metals.

Through those precious angelic eyes.

[Workers' health is too precious to be a political balloon].

Early bond strength of luting cements to a precious alloy.

Recovery of precious metals from waste streams.

Complex congenital heart disease in a complicated and precious pregnancy.

Precious papers from 'non-research-intensive' countries.

Precious: a film based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

Some Stones Are Precious-Extraluminal Appendicoliths.

Chemistry. Abundant metals give precious hydrogenation performance.

Optimizing the Use of a Precious Resource: The Role of Emergency Physicians in a Humanitarian Crisis.

A comparison of the casting ability of precious and nonprecious alloys for porcelain veneering.

Neutralizing the detrimental effect of glutathione on precious metal catalysts.

Some aspects of non-precious metal alloys for ceramic restorations.

Precious and coveted as diamonds: Toronto's Nanny Angel Network.

Boy or girl's mendelian genetics with "precious" families.

Guarding the precious smile: incidence and prevention of injury in sports: a review.

Highly porous non-precious bimetallic electrocatalysts for efficient hydrogen evolution.