In 1955, Penn State Professor of Physics Erwin W. Müller became the first person to see an atom. Using a field ion microscope of his own invention — a landmark advance in scientific instrumentation that magnified these building blocks of the universe more than two million times — Müller, for the first time, determined “the nature of one single atom seen on a metal surface and select from neighboring atoms at the disc….”

Now, visitors to Penn State are invited to see the instruments that enabled such a breakthrough. These historic pieces of equipment will be formally unveiled on Sept. 5 during a “Celebration of Penn State’s Milestones in Physics” event and will be on display in Müller’s former office, 205 Osmond Lab, as well as in the lobby of Osmond Lab, at Penn State University Park.

Read more about the long-term impact of this field of research.

Tour the historic equipment and today’s state-of-the-art facilities

This fall, the Eberly College of Science and Materials Research Institute (MRI) will host special tours for the public see this very early, groundbreaking technology as well as the modern version of the equipment: state-of-the-art atomic resolution microscopes at the Materials Characterization Lab (MCL).

On home football game Fridays between 3 and 5 p.m., visitors can tour the original, historic Müller equipment in Osmond Lab and then walk over to the lobby of the MRI entrance of the Millenium Science Complex to tour imaging equipment in the MCL, one of three core facilities in the MRI that fuel the interdisciplinary, life-changing innovations of Penn State’s materials research.

Tour dates include:
Sept. 12
Sept. 26
Oct. 10
Nov. 7
Nov. 21

Tours will be provided by physics postdoctoral scholar Hannah Wood in Osmond Lab and David Fecko, director of MRI industry collaborations in the MCL, and will be supported by Eberly College of Science undergraduate student volunteers from the college’s Science LionPride organization.

More tour information available at science.psu.edu/impact/muller