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Asked by to Clare, Divya, Ian, Jess, Lewis on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Lewis Dean answered on 17 Mar 2014:
There is lots of information about the element on the Zone Home page. I think that’s the best place to find out more about it.
I don’t use lanthanum in my work, because I work with monkeys and apes.
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Ian Hands-Portman answered on 17 Mar 2014:
I use it in tiny quantities. It’s not dangerous – well no more dangerous than most other metals and my microscope wouldn’t work with out it – at the very top of one of the electron microscopes there’s a crystal of something called lanthanum hexaboride. It’s a beautiful iridescent purple colour but that’s not why we use it –
I need to make an electron beam and older microscopes would use a tungsten filament just like a light bulb filament; when it’s heated in a vacuum ( there’s no air inside the microscope ) electron boil off the tip of the filament and I fired down the microscope. The Lanthanum crystal replaces the tungsten filament, we can get it much much hotter and it’s much tougher material so we get a brighter beam and it lasts longer – a good thing too as the crystal costs a thousand pounds.
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Divya Venkatesh answered on 17 Mar 2014:
I don’t use it in mine, but I may be sending some samples off to be analysed by electron microscope at the end of the year – so good to know, Ian!
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Clare Nevin answered on 17 Mar 2014:
I haven’t come across Lanthanum before ever! And no it doesn’t have any link to my work.
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