James Hillier, who initiated or helped initiate some of the major electronic advances of the past 75 years, died of a stroke on 15 January 2007 in Princeton, New Jersey. His first and perhaps most important contribution was his role in creating the first commercially successful electron microscope in North America.
Born 22 August 1915 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, Hillier went to the University of Toronto, where he earned his BA in 1937, MA in 1938, and PhD in 1941, all in physics. The physics department had been working to produce a high-resolution microscope under the direction of Eli Burton. Hillier and Albert Prebus were assigned to the effort in December 1937. They asked permission to go from 40 kV to 60 kV and to use direct exposure on photographic plates instead of taking a picture of the fluorescent screen. Based on their freehand drawings of the design changes, Burton let them alter the existing microscope and start building what became the successful electron microscope.
By 1938 German claims of electron microscopes with 100-Å resolution—20 times better than the light microscope—were reported in major newspapers. The announcement gave Burton leverage for more funding and indicated existence of a market for such microscopes. It spurred Hillier and Prebus to renewed urgency and caused them to wonder how they might get a piece of the action. They reached 100-Å resolution by December 1939. That same year, electron microscope imports from overseas were blocked by war in Europe. Canada did not have the industrial power to quickly begin large-scale manufacture of such equipment. Hillier, after defending his doctoral thesis, “The Fundamental Principles of Practicing Electron Microscopy,” in the early spring of 1940, telephoned GE and RCA for interviews.
He found his first opportunity at RCA. Vladimir Zworykin, associate director of RCA Research Laboratories, had gone through two designers without getting an electron microscope that would work in normal light, a criterion that he and RCA marketing considered essential. Hillier told him that if the specimen was thin enough, high beam current could be used and the fluorescent screen seen in a well-lighted room.
Zworykin asked Hillier how long it would take to produce a prototype based on the one Hillier and Prebus had made in Toronto. The answer: two weeks, because students had to make extra parts in the university shops after working hours. Thus, Hillier had a working scope in 12 days and nights with help from his Toronto associates, especially William Ladd. Zworykin and Hillier then got RCA to agree to have its laboratory begin manufacturing the microscopes until the company’s factory could take over one to two years later.
Many industries purchased microscopes primarily for prestige; others had trouble finding good operators. Zworykin and Hillier realized they needed to educate clients and develop trained operators more than they needed to increase sales. They endorsed an idea to convene an open meeting to discuss the future of electron microscopy in the US. Organized by chemical physicist G. L. Clark, the meeting was held in Chicago. Hillier gave concise, straightforward answers to questions. He impressed the audience with his broad understanding of the microscope’s problems and test results and his phenomenal memory of historical details of RCA’s work.
Toward the end of the meeting, a resolution to establish a permanent organization—the Electron Microscope Society of America—was passed unanimously. Hillier was elected president for the 1945 term. He made many contributions to EMSA, including developing standards of measuring and reporting magnification and resolution. He showed that by slightly defocusing an image, he could measure a specimen regardless of its quality. He was active in the formation of the International Federation of Societies for Electron Microscopy. At IFSEM’s 1954 meeting in Toronto, Canada honored Hillier, his University of Toronto partners, and their German counterparts as the first scientists to achieve 100-Å resolution.
When foreign microscope manufacturers tried to capture part of the US market in the 1960s, RCA was not affected. Hillier had assembled a strong research and development team during his first 15 years there. The RCA scopes were now reliable and user-friendly. One of Hillier’s most important staff additions was John Reisner. Hillier had been overseeing the microscope work at RCA’s laboratories in Princeton and Camden. Always a good judge of character, Hillier saw in Reisner a man he could trust and in 1951 placed him in charge of the Camden laboratory. Their teamwork between the two labs produced the golden years of RCA’s microscope development.
In 1967, after 27 years of working directly on electron microscopes, Hillier became a business executive with RCA. His coworkers and friends appreciated his interest in a wide range of subjects, his directness of action, and his exceptional self-confidence. He retired in 1977.
Hillier and I were lifetime friends and sometimes competitors. We both had worked in successful programs to make a transmission electron microscope. The last time I saw him, we talked as usual about friends we had lost but mainly about the future of technology. When I asked if he regretted having to do graduate work in physics instead of art—he received a physics and math scholarship to Toronto—he said, “I enjoy drawing and painting to clear my thinking or bond with other people, but the day I was forced into electron microscopy was the luckiest day of my life.”
