The Special Case of Ruska

In principle, Ernst Ruska s department would have complemented Laue s plan well as electron microscopy showed promise as a new method for structure research. Moreover, Ruska had won special respect for himself from Berliners when he decided to turn down attractive offers from institutions in West Germany and remain in the city, unlike the majority of renowned scientists and engineers. 

In 1949, the year that his department was estabiished at the KWI for Physicai Chemistry and Eiectrochemistry, Ruska was aiso appointed Honorary Professor of Eiectron Optics and Microscopy at the Freie Universitat and iecturer at the Techni-cai University ofBeriin, where he wouid become adjunct professor in 1959. At first, Ruska only worked at the institute part-time in 1952, he asked Laue to expand his department so that he couid move fuiiy to the PHI. The move wouid offer Ruska the opportunity to pursue his research and deveiopment goais essentiaiiy unchecked whereas, corporate strategists at Siemens wanted to deveiop mainiy mass-produced instruments rather than the compiex and expensive high-performance devices that Ruska had in mind. 

In the post-WWII period, Ruska continued to further perfect the electron microscope as a department head at Siemens. In 1954, Elmiskop I, developed by E. Ruska, was put on the market, and the sale of about 1000 of these instruments over the next ten years substantially contributed to the spread and acceptance of electron microscopy. Ruska played a key role not only as a design engineer, but also as a figmehead for German electron microscopists. Starting in 1949 he was able to make use of the facilities of the future Fritz Haber Institute, to which he fully relocated in 1955, and where, two years later, he became the head of a sub-institute for electron microscopy he stayed at the Institute until his retirement in 1974. Two years before his death, the already highly decorated Ruska received the 1986 Physics Nobel Prize, for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope.  

Ruska s department also included the remnants of Kallmann s former department, which Immanuel Broser led as a research group. Following up on work with cadmium sulfide (CdS) begun under Frerichs and Kallmann, the group focused on 

55 SektionsprotokoII, 19 May 1953 and 9 June 1954, MPGA, CPT Akten, Niederschriften der Sitzungen. 

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