Development of Electron Probe Instrumentation During those Early Days When Professor Castatng Visited Japan

Extract

In May of 1955 Professor Shinoda introduced the development of the electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) in a review article published by Oyobutsuri (the Applied Physics journal written in Japanese), which showed a schematic diagram of an EPMA system. That paper, published in the most popular journal in Japan, was very probably the first paper which drew the attention of the people involved in the field of material science, in particular, the field of metallurgy, who were especially interested in EPMA. That paper stimulated the development of EPMA in Japan.

In 1957, the funding provided by the Grant-in-Aid for Developmental Research to the university research groups headed by Profs. Akutagawa, Gokyuu, and Abe at the University of Tokyo was used, in a cooperation with the Hitachi group headed by Drs. Tadano and Watanabe, to develop the EPMA in Japan. Their research results led to the funding of a 2 year Grant-in-Aid for Cooperative Research project (April 1960 to March 1962) called “The Study of X-ray Microanalyzer”, which was chaired by Prof. Sakaki and consisted of 37 members from various universities, national institutes and industries. Prof. Shinoda, who became the Chairman of that project in April of 1962, led that group for another year until March of 1963.

It was just after the start of the Cooperative Research project, in September of 1960, that Professor Castaing visited Japan and gave several talks as a representative of the French Mission Culturelle. Professor Castaing gave a talk at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory on the 19^th of September, another talk at the Nagoya University on the 24^th of September, and also a talk at Osaka University on the 28^th of September. During his stay in Japan from September 18^th to October 4^th he talked about his work on EPMA a total of six times by also giving two informal presentations. The visit of Professor Castaing gave a great push forward for the commercial development of EPMA instruments in Japan.