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The principal specimen-adjacent focusing lens of an electron microscope. Its role depends on the mode: forming a small incident probe in scanned imaging differs from forming an enlarged transmitted image in conventional imaging.^[ref]

Treat the magnetic electron lens as a paraxial thin lens. A point in the specimen sends rays through different lens positions; the lens brings these to a conjugate point in the image plane, with $1/u+1/v=1/f$ and transverse magnification $-v/u$. Conversely, waves leaving different specimen points at the same angle are focused to the same point in the back focal plane. This plane therefore contains the electron diffraction pattern, with radius $r\simeq f\theta$ for small scattering angle $\theta$. The specimen is just beyond the front focal plane, giving a magnified real image farther downstream.

The sketch assumes a thin specimen, coherent approximately parallel illumination, small angles and an ideal lens without aberrations. Quantitative diffraction intensities may require dynamical scattering; the ray sketch only establishes the plane conjugacies.^[ref]