A Personal Retrospective on the Origin of the Time-of-Flight Atom Probe

Who created the atom probe microscope?By virtue of being listed as the sole inventor on a patent issued in 1971 and bearing the title "Atom Probe Field Ion Microscope Having Means for Separating the Ions According to Mass" [1], the immediate and simple answer to this question must be Erwin W. Müller (Mueller).As my title suggests however, I am going to make a case in this paper for a more expansive answer.It was my good fortune to play a seminal role in the genesis of the atom probe microscope.From the vantage of that experience, I maintain that the atom probe microscope and, in particular, the time-of-flight (ToF) atom probe microscope emerged from a synthesis of advances in ToF mass spectrometry (MS), the advent and development of field-ion microscopy (FIM), and early attempts to apply MS to the study of field ionization.