 The instrument was designed originally by Gerasimos Danilatos while working at the University of New South Wales.Starting with Manfred von Ardenne, early attempts have been reported on the examination of specimens inside "environmental" cells with water or atmospheric gas, in conjunction with conventional and scanning transmission types of electron microscopes.However, the first images of wet specimens in an SEM were reported by Lane in 1970 when he injected a fine jet of water vapor over the point of observation at the specimen surface; the gas diffused away into the vacuum of the specimen chamber without any modification to the instrument.