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Death Notice

2 August 1921 - 18 July 2006
Aberfeldy, Perthshire, UK

Submitted by Physics Today Editorial Staff

Published on 21 July 2006

James Woodham Menter was born in Teynham, Kent on the 2 August 1921. After attending the Dover Grammar School he won an scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to read Natural Sciences. During World War II, he served with the Navy, working on the underwater detection of submarines. After the war he returned to Cambridge University to use electron microscopy to study surfaces.

Menter used electron microscopy to study how the metallic structure of gold foil deformed under stress. In 1954, he joined the TI Groups newly formed Tube
Investments Research Laboratories. TIRL had some of the most advanced electron microscopes of the time, and Menter exploited access to these instruments by trying a new sample technique: growing very thin flakes of platinum phthalocyanine in solution. The success of this technique (which was published in the 1956 Proceedings of the Royal Society) led to a whole new way of creating samples and imaging their crystalline structure.

Another technique Menter helped develop, involved overlapping two thin metallic films. The resulting a moiré image of the imperfections in the crystal lattice could, for the first time, show lattice distortions called dislocations. A joint Cambridge University and TIRL project help develop another way of obtaining thin film samples by using a vacuum evaporation technique.

In 1961 Menter became director of TIRL, and strove to increase collaboration with Cambridge. A new practical instrument was being developed by the university in conjection with Cambridge Instrument Company called a electron probe microanalyser (EPMA). Menter struck an agreement that TIRL would manufacture and market the device, which turned into a great commercial and scientific success.

In 1966 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1968 he resigned as director of TIRL, as he became more involved with the main company board at TI Group and hoped to help increase links between the research efforts at TIRL, and the other companies involved in the group.

In 1976, Menter became Principal of Queen Mary College, University of London where he concentrated his efforts on improving research activities at the College. At the same time he remained a non-executive director of TI Group. In 1986 he retired from QMC.

Paul Guinnessy
College Park, MD

Current comments and reminiscences on James Woodham Menter:

"Jim Menter was a man blessed with sensitive antennae, a razor-sharp mind, generosity of spirit and a shrewd sense of opportunity. He also had a splendid sense of humour..."

See The Independent, 28 July 2006

Don W. Pashley
Imperial College,
London, UK