 Starting work with Robinson in 1978 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Danilatos undertook a thorough quantitative study and experimentation that resulted in a stable operation of the microscope at room temperature and high pressures up to 7000 Pa, as reported in 1979.In the following years, Danilatos, working independently, reported a series of works on the design and construction of an environmental or atmospheric scanning electron microscope (ASEM) capable of working at any pressure from vacuum up to one atmosphere.These early works involved the optimization of the differential pumping system together with backscattered electron (BSE) detectors until 1983, when he invented the use of the environmental gas itself as a detection medium.