curriculum
vitae
I was born on 25 December 1906 in Heidelberg
as the fifth of seven children of Professor Julius
Ruska and his wife Elisbeth
(née Merx). After graduating from grammar school
in Heidelberg I studied electronics at the
Technical College in Munich,
studies which I began in the autumn of 1925 and continued
two years later in Berlin. I received my practical
training from Brown-Boveri &
Co. in Mannheim and Siemens
& Halske Ltd. in Berlin. Whilst still a
student at the Technical College in
Berlin I began my involvement with high voltage
and vacuum technology at the Institute of High Voltage,
whose director was Professor Adolf
Matthias. Under the direct tutelage of Dr.
Max Knoll and together with other doctoral
students I worked on the development of a high
performance cathode ray oscilloscope. On the one hand my
interest lay principally in the development of materials
for the building of vacuum instruments according to the
principles of construction; on the other it lay in
continuing theoretical lectures and practical experiments
in the optical behaviour of electron rays.
My first completed scientific work (1928-1929) was
concerned with the mathematical and experimental proof of
Busch's theory of the effect
of the magnetic field of a coil of wire through which an
electric current is passed and which is then used as an
electron lens. During the course of this work I
recognised that the focal length of the waves could be
shortened by use of an iron cap. From this discovery the
polschuh
lens was developed, a lens which has been used
since then in all magnetic high-resolution electron
microscopes.
Further work, conducted together with Dr. Knoll, led
to the first construction of an electron
microscope in 1931. With this instrument two
of the most important processes for image reproduction
were introduced-the principles of emission and radiation.
In 1933 I was able to put into use an electron
microscope, built by myself, that for the first time
gave better definition than a light microscope. In my
Doctoral thesis of 1934 and for my university teaching
thesis (1944), both at the Technical College in Berlin, I
investigated the properties of electron lenses with short
focal lengths.
Since the further technical development of electron
microscopes could not be the task of a college
institute-whose resources would have been far
overstretched - I went to work in industry in the field
of electron optics. From 1933 to 1937 I was with
Fernseh Ltd. in
Berlin-Zehlendorf and was responsible for the development
of television receivers and transmitters, as well as
photoelectric cells with secondary amplification.
Convinced of the great practical importance of electron
microscopy for pure and applied research I attempted
during this time to continue the development of
high-resolution electron microscopes with larger
materials, this time working with Dr.
Bodo von Borries. This work was made possible
in 1936-1937 by Siemens &
Halske. In Berlin-Spandau in 1937 we set up the
Laboratory for Electron Optics and developed there until
1939 the first customised electron microscopes (the
'Siemens Super Microscope'). Parallel to the development
of this instrument my brother, Dr.
Med. Helmut Ruska, and
his colleagues worked on its application, particularly in
the medical and biological fields. In order to promote
its usage in different scientific areas as quickly as
possible we suggested to Siemens that they set up a
visiting institute for research work to be carried out
using electron microscopy. This institute was founded in
1940. From this institute, in which we worked together
with both German and foreign scientists, around 200
scientific papers were published before the end of 1944.
My task consisted in the development and production of
the electron microscope, such that by the beginning of
1945 around 35 institutions were equipped with one.
In the years following 1945 I, together with a
majority of new colleagues, reconstituted the Institute
of Electron Optics in Berlin-Siemensstadt, which had been
disbanded due to bombing, so that by 1949 electron
microscopes were again being built. This new period of
development led in 1954 to 'Elmiskop
I', which since then has been used in over 1200
institutions the world over. At the same time I sought
the further physical development of the electron
microscope by working at other scientific institutions.
Thus from August 1947 to December 1948 I worked at the
German Academy of Sciences
in Berlin-Buch in the Faculty of Medicine and Biology,
then from January 1949 as Head of Department at what is
today the Fritz
Haber Institute of the Max
Planck Society in Berlin-Dahlem. Here on 27
June 1957 I was made Director of the
Institute for Electron
Microscopy, after I had given up my position with
Siemens in 1955. I retired on 31 December 1974.
From 1949 until 1971 I held lectures on the basic
principles of electron optics and electron microscopy at
both the Free
University and the Technical
University of Berlin. My publications
in the area of electron optics and electron microscopy
include several contributions to books and over 100
original scientific papers.
