Question: have you ever broken (or thought you have) a electron microscope?

Rebecca Thompson answered on 21 Jun 2016:

Great question!

Yes, many times.. And its scary because they cost so much money, and the repairs can be expensive! Luckily I’ve never ‘properly’ broken it, I’ve always been able to fix it. The most common thing that goes wrong is the vacuum (no air) inside the microscope breaks when we put samples in. Luckily this only breaks it for a few hours until the vacuum pumps have time to pump the space inside back down!