Paul Kirkpatrick
Paul H. Kirkpatrick (July 21, 1894 – December 26, 1992) was co-inventor of the X-ray reflection microscope, and the imaging technique he and his graduate student Albert Baez developed is still used, particularly in astronomy to take X-ray pictures of galaxies and in medicine.Paul Kirkpatrick, inventor of the X-ray microscope, dead at 98
. Obituary, Stanford University, 1992 An award in his name was established in the Physics Department at

X-ray Microscope
An X-ray microscope uses electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray band to produce magnified images of objects. Since X-rays penetrate most objects, there is no need to specially prepare them for X-ray microscopy observations. Unlike visible light, X-rays do not reflect or refract easily and are invisible to the human eye. Therefore, an X-ray microscope exposes film or uses a charge-coupled device (CCD) detector to detect X-rays that pass through the specimen. It is a contrast imaging technology using the difference in absorption of soft X-rays in the water window region (wavelengths: 2.34–4.4 nm, energies: 280–530 eV) by the carbon atom (main element composing the living cell) and the oxygen atom (an element of water). Microfocus X-ray also achieves high magnification by projection. A microfocus X-ray tube produces X-rays from an extremely small focal spot (5 μm down to 0.1 μm). The X-rays are in the more conventional X-ray range (20 to 300 keV) and ar ...
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