I haven't worked with STEMs before, but with Two photon and confocal setups. My bet is everything around the microscope is probably going to cost as much as, p

I haven't worked with STEMs before, but with Two photon and confocal setups. My bet is everything around the microscope is probably going to cost as much as, possibly even more the microscope itself. E.g., a good optics bench will set you back several thousand, and they are extremely heavy. STEMs also typically operate in a vacuum at very low temperatures approaching absolute zero, so you will some liquid nitro handy to cool your sample as well as a way to pump all the air out.