The first commercial electron microprobe, the "MS85" was produced by CAMECA (France) in 1956.. It was soon followed in the early-mid 1960s by many microprobes from other companies; however, all companies except CAMECA , JEOL and Shimadzu Corporation are now out of business. In addition, many researchers build electron microprobes in their labs. Significant subsequent improvements and modifications to microprobes included scanning the electron beam to make X-ray maps (1960), the addition of solid state EDS detectors (1968) and the development of synthetic multilayer diffracting crystals for analysis of light elements (1984). Later, CAMECA became also the pioneer on manufacturing a shielded version of the electron microprobe for nuclear applications. Several new advances in CAMECA instruments in the last decades allowed them to expand their range of applications on metallurgy, electronics, geology, mineralogy, nuclear plants, trace elements, dentistry, etc.