Fred explained the history and development of the Field Ion Microscope between 1963 and 1998. This was a very intricate apparatus and the number of different designs over the years was very time consuming. The early chambers using liquid nitrogen and liquid helium achieved some very good vacuums while being baked. Fred's talk included presenting the delegates with some of his construction puzzles to see what solutions we would have come up with, it was good to hear the variety of other ideas. Ian explained the useful properties of ceramics for hard wearing applications where metals would suffer corrosive damage.
Advanced ceramics are hard, tough and durable and have three times the strength of a decade ago.
The ceramic coating of engineering tools with titanium nitride made them tougher and harder with better cutting edges with lower coefficient of friction. There are medical applications for using ceramic in hip joints to extend their useful life. The final part of the talk and tour was to see the ceramic tubing being used as furnaces at 1500 Centigrade. These being connected to mass spectrometers by a sealing type glass tube the making of which is to be demonstrated in the next workshop. Keith Holden Industrial Research Centre.