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A microscope (from the , mikrós, "small" and , skopeîn, "to look" or "see") is an instrument
Laboratory equipment

Laboratory equipment refers to the various tools and equipment used by scientists working in a laboratory. These include tools such as Bunsen burners, and microscopes as well as specialty equipment such as operant conditioning chambers, spectrophotometers and calorimeters....
 for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye
Eye

Eyes are Organ that detect light, and send signals along the optic nerve to the visual system and other areas of the brain. Complex optical systems with resolving power have come in ten fundamentally different forms, and 96% of animal species possess a complex optical system....
. The science
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
 of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy
Microscopy

Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples or objects. There are three well-known branches of microscopy, optical microscopy, electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy....
. The term microscopic
Microscopic

Microscopic is a term used to describe objects smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye and which require a lens or microscope to see them clearly....
 means minute or very small, not visible with the eye unless aided by a microscope.

oscopes trace their history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 back almost 1200 years with Abbas Ibn Firnas
Abbas Ibn Firnas

Abbas Ibn Firnas , also known as Abbas Qasim Ibn Firnas and ?????? ?? ????? , was an Arabic-speaking Berber people, born in Izn-Rand Onda, al-Andalus , who lived in the Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba in al-Andalus....
's corrective lenses, and it was Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics
Book of Optics

The Book of Optics was a seven-volume treatise on optics, Islamic physics, Islamic mathematics, Islamic medicine and Islamic psychology written by the Iraqi Islamic science Ibn al-Haytham in 1011?21, when he was under house arrest in Cairo, Egypt....
 — written between 1011 and 1021 — that laid the foundation for optical research on the magnifying glass
Magnifying glass

A magnifying glass is a Lens #Types of lenses which is used to produce a magnification of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle ....
.






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A microscope (from the , mikrós, "small" and , skopeîn, "to look" or "see") is an instrument
Laboratory equipment

Laboratory equipment refers to the various tools and equipment used by scientists working in a laboratory. These include tools such as Bunsen burners, and microscopes as well as specialty equipment such as operant conditioning chambers, spectrophotometers and calorimeters....
 for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye
Eye

Eyes are Organ that detect light, and send signals along the optic nerve to the visual system and other areas of the brain. Complex optical systems with resolving power have come in ten fundamentally different forms, and 96% of animal species possess a complex optical system....
. The science
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
 of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy
Microscopy

Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples or objects. There are three well-known branches of microscopy, optical microscopy, electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy....
. The term microscopic
Microscopic

Microscopic is a term used to describe objects smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye and which require a lens or microscope to see them clearly....
 means minute or very small, not visible with the eye unless aided by a microscope.

History

Microscopes trace their history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 back almost 1200 years with Abbas Ibn Firnas
Abbas Ibn Firnas

Abbas Ibn Firnas , also known as Abbas Qasim Ibn Firnas and ?????? ?? ????? , was an Arabic-speaking Berber people, born in Izn-Rand Onda, al-Andalus , who lived in the Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba in al-Andalus....
's corrective lenses, and it was Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics
Book of Optics

The Book of Optics was a seven-volume treatise on optics, Islamic physics, Islamic mathematics, Islamic medicine and Islamic psychology written by the Iraqi Islamic science Ibn al-Haytham in 1011?21, when he was under house arrest in Cairo, Egypt....
 — written between 1011 and 1021 — that laid the foundation for optical research on the magnifying glass
Magnifying glass

A magnifying glass is a Lens #Types of lenses which is used to produce a magnification of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle ....
. Also, a device called the reading stone
Reading stone

A reading stone was an approximately hemispherical transparent object placed on top of text to magnification the letters so that people with presbyopia could read the text more easily....
 by an unknown inventor (thought to be Ibn Firnas) magnified text when laid on top of reading materials.

The first true microscope was made around 1595 in Middelburg, Holland. Three different eyeglass
Glasses

Glasses or specs, more formally known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are frames bearing lens worn in front of the eyes, normally for Corrective lens, eye protection, or for UV Coating....
 makers have been given credit for the invention: Hans Lippershey
Hans Lippershey

File:Hans Lippershey.jpgHans Lippershey , also known as Johann Lippershey or Lipperhey, was a Germany-Netherlands lens .He was born in Wesel, in western Germany....
 (who also developed the first real telescope
Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
); Hans Janssen; and his son, Zacharias
Zacharias Janssen

Zacharias Janssen was a Netherlands spectacle-maker from Middelburg credited with inventing, or contributing advances towards the invention of the telescope....
. The coining of the name "microscope" has been credited to Giovanni Faber
Giovanni Faber

Giovanni Faber or Johann Faber was a German papal doctor, botanist and art collector, originally from Bamberg in Bavaria, who lived in Rome from 1598....
, who gave that name to Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was a Grand Duchy of Tuscany physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution....
's compound microscope in 1625. (Galileo had called it the "occhiolino" or "little eye".)

The most common type of microscope—and the first to be invented—is the optical microscope
Optical microscope

The optical microscope, often referred to as the "light microscope", is a type of microscope which uses visible light and a system of lens to magnify images of small samples....
. This is an optical
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
 instrument
Measuring instrument

In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantity of real-world object and phenomenon....
 containing one or more lenses
Lens (optics)

A lens is an optics device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmittance and refraction light, converging or diverging the beam....
 that produce an enlarged image of an object placed in the focal plane of the lens(es). There are, however, many other microscope designs.

Types

"Microscopes" can largely be separated into three classes: optical theory microscopes (Light microscope), electron microscopes (e.g.,TEM), and scanning probe microscopes (SPM).

Optical theory microscopes are microscopes which function through the optical theory of lenses in order to magnify the image generated by the passage of a wave
Wave

A wave is a disturbance that propagates through space and time, usually with transference of energy. While a mechanical wave exists in a medium , waves of electromagnetic radiation can travel through vacuum, that is, without a medium....
 through the sample. The waves used are either electromagnetic (in optical microscope
Optical microscope

The optical microscope, often referred to as the "light microscope", is a type of microscope which uses visible light and a system of lens to magnify images of small samples....
s) or electron
Electron

The electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has elementary particle and is believed to be a point particle....
 beams (in electron microscopes). The types are the Compound Light, Stereo, and the electron microscope.

Optical microscopes


Optical microscope
Optical microscope

The optical microscope, often referred to as the "light microscope", is a type of microscope which uses visible light and a system of lens to magnify images of small samples....
s, through their use of visible wavelengths of light, are the simplest and hence most widely used type of microscope.

Optical microscopes typically use refractive
Refraction

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly observed when a wave passes from one optical medium to another....
 glass
Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
 and occasionally of plastic
Plastic

Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic chemistry solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products....
 or quartz
Quartz

Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a Crystal structure of silica tetrahedra. Quartz has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale and a density of 2.65 g/cm?....
, to focus light into the eye or another light detector. Mirror-based optical microscopes operate in the same manner. Typical magnification of a light microscope, assuming visible range light, is up to 1500x with a theoretical resolution limit
Angular resolution

Angular resolution describes the resolving power of any such as an Optical telescope or radio telescope, a microscope, a camera, or an eye....
 of around 0.2 micrometres or 200 nanometers. Specialized techniques (e.g., scanning confocal microscopy
Confocal laser scanning microscopy

Confocal laser scanning microscopy is a technique for obtaining high- optical images. The key feature of confocal microscopy is its ability to produce in-focus images of thick specimens, a process known as optical sectioning....
) may exceed this magnification but the resolution is diffraction
Diffraction

Diffraction is normally taken to refer to various phenomena which occur when a wave encounters an obstacle. It is described as the apparent bending of waves around small obstacles and the spreading out of waves past small openings....
 limited. Using shorter wavelengths of light, such as the ultraviolet, is one way to improve the spatial resolution of the microscope as are techniques such as Near-field scanning optical microscope
Near-field scanning optical microscope

Near-field scanning optical microscopy is a microscopy for nanostructure investigation that breaks the far field resolution limit by exploiting the properties of evanescent waves....
. Various wavelength
Wavelength

In physics, wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a propagating wave of a given frequency. It is commonly designated by the Greek language letter lambda ....
s of light, including those beyond the visible range, are sometimes used for special purposes. Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 400 nanometer to 10 nm, and energies from 3 Electron volt to 124 eV....
 light is used to enable the resolution of smaller features as well as to image samples that are transparent to the eye. Near infrared light is used to image circuitry embedded in bonded silicon devices as silicon is transparent in this region. Many wavelengths of light, ranging from the ultraviolet to the visible are used to excite fluorescence
Fluorescence

Fluorescence is a luminescence that is mostly found as an optical phenomenon in cold bodies, in which the molecular absorption of a photon triggers the emission of a photon with a longer wavelength....
 emission from objects for viewing by eye or with sensitive cameras.
  • phase contrast microscope:Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy illumination
    Illumination

    Illumination may refer to:*Illumination , the use of light sources*Illumination , the use of light and shadow in art*Illumination , the artistic decoration of hand-written texts...
     technique in which small phase shifts in the light passing through a transparent specimen are converted into amplitude
    Amplitude

    Amplitude is the magnitude of change in the oscillating variable, with each oscillation, within an oscillating system. For instance, sound waves are oscillations in atmospheric pressure and their amplitudes are proportional to the change in pressure during one oscillation....
     or contrast
    Contrast

    Contrast is the dissimilarity or difference between things:* Contrast , expressing distinctions between words* Contrast , the difference in color and light between parts of an image....
     changes in the image.
A phase contrast microscope
Microscope

A microscope is an Laboratory equipment for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy....
 does not require staining to view the slide. This microscope made it possible to study the cell cycle
Cell cycle

The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell leading to its division and duplication . In cells without a nucleus , the cell cycle occurs via a process termed binary fission....
.
The Digital microscope
Digital microscope

A digital microscope uses optics and a charge-coupled device camera to output a digital image to a monitor. A digital microscope differs from an optical microscope in that there is no provision to observe the sample directly through an eye piece....
 appeared a few years ago, using optics and a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera to output a digital image to a monitor. This technology invented by Hirox offers a much higher depth of field
Depth of field

In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, the depth of field is the portion of a scene that appears sharp in the image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on either side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under nor...
 and working distance as well as increased flexibility of inspection for large sized objects (NDT, skin, paintings) in a broad range of applications.

Electron Microscopes

Three major variants of electron microscopes exist:
  • Scanning electron microscope
    Scanning electron microscope

    The scanning electron microscope is a type of electron microscope that images the sample surface by scanning it with a high-energy beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern....
     (SEM
    Sem

    Sem may refer to:*Shem; One of the sons of Noah in the Bible*Sem, France*Sem, Norway*Scanning electron microscope*Strategic enterprise management...
    ): looks at the surface of bulk objects by scanning the surface with a fine electron beam and measuring reflection. May also be used for spectroscopy
    Spectroscopy

    Spectroscopy was originally the study of the interaction between radiation and matter as a function of wavelength . In fact, historically, spectroscopy referred to the use of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g....
    .
  • Transmission electron microscope (TEM): passes electrons completely through the sample, analogous to basic optical microscopy
    Bright field microscopy

    Bright field microscopy is the simplest of all the optical microscopy illumination techniques. Sample illumination is transmitted White. The most common use of the microscope involves the use of an organism mounted to a glass microscope slide....
    . This requires careful sample preparation, since electrons are scattered so strongly by most materials.This is a scientific device that allows people to see objects that could normally not be seen by the naked or unaided eye.
  • Scanning Tunneling Microscope
    Scanning tunneling microscope

    Scanning tunneling microscope is a powerful technique for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer , the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986....
     (STM
    STM

    STM, an abbreviation, may refer to:In education:*St. Malachy's Memorial High School, a High School in Canada*Master of Sacred Theology, a second level professional degree conferred by seminaries and theological colleges...
    ): is a powerful technique for viewing surfaces at the atomic level.


The SEM
Sem

Sem may refer to:*Shem; One of the sons of Noah in the Bible*Sem, France*Sem, Norway*Scanning electron microscope*Strategic enterprise management...
, TEM, STM
STM

STM, an abbreviation, may refer to:In education:*St. Malachy's Memorial High School, a High School in Canada*Master of Sacred Theology, a second level professional degree conferred by seminaries and theological colleges...
 are included in the scanning probe microscopy
Scanning probe microscopy

Scanning Probe Microscopy is a branch of microscopy that forms images of surfaces using a physical probe that scans the specimen. An image of the surface is obtained by mechanically moving the probe in a raster scan of the specimen, line by line, and recording the probe-surface interaction as a function of position....
.

Established types of scanning probe microscopy

  • AFM, atomic force microscopy
    • Contact AFM
    • Non-contact AFM
    • Dynamic contact AFM
    • Tapping AFM
  • BEEM, ballistic electron emission microscopy
    Ballistic electron emission microscopy

    Ballistic electron emission microscopy or BEEM is a technique for studying ballistic electron transport through variety of materials and material interfaces....
  • EFM, electrostatic force microscope
    Electrostatic force microscope

    Electrostatic force microscopy is a type of dynamic non-contact atomic force microscopy where the electrostatic force is probed. . This force arises due to the attraction or repulsion of separated charges....
  • ESTM electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope
    Electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope

    The electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope, or ESTM, was invented in 1988 by Kingo Itaya in Japan. With ESTM, the structures of surfaces and electrochemical reactions in solid-liquid interfaces can be observed at atom or molecule scales....
  • FMM, force modulation microscopy
  • KPFM, kelvin probe force microscopy
    Kelvin probe force microscope

    Kelvin probe force microscopy , also known as surface potential microscopy, is a noncontact variant of Atomic force microscope that was in 1991....
  • MFM, magnetic force microscopy
  • MRFM, magnetic resonance force microscopy
    Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy

    Magnetic resonance force microscopy is an imaging technique that acquires magnetic resonance images at nanometer scales, and possibly at atomic scales in the future....
  • NSOM, near-field scanning optical microscopy (or SNOM, scanning near-field optical microscopy)
  • PFM, Piezo Force Microscopy
  • PSTM, photon scanning tunneling microscopy
  • PTMS, photothermal microspectroscopy
    Photothermal microspectroscopy

    Photothermal Micro-Spectroscopy , alternatively known as PTTF , is derived from two parent instrumental techniques: infrared spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy ....
    /microscopy
  • SAP, scanning atom probe
  • SECM, scanning electrochemical microscopy
  • SCM, scanning capacitance microscopy
    Scanning capacitance microscopy

    Scanning capacitance microscopy is a variety of scanning probe microscopy in which a narrow probe electrode is held just above the surface of a sample and scanned across the sample....
  • SGM, scanning gate microscopy
    Scanning gate microscopy

    Scanning gate microscopy is a scanning probe microscopy technique with an electrically conductive tip used as a movable gate that couples capacitively to the sample and probes electrical transport on the nanometer scale....
  • SICM, scanning ion-conductance microscopy
    Scanning ion-conductance microscopy

    The scanning ion-conductance microscope consists of an electrically charged glass micro- or nanopipette probe filled with electrolyte lowered toward the surface of the sample in an oppositely charged bath of electrolyte....
  • SPSM spin polarized scanning tunneling microscopy
    Spin polarized scanning tunneling microscopy

    Spin polarized scanning tunneling microscopy is a specialized application of scanning tunneling microscopy that can provide detailed information of magentic phenomena on the single atom scale additional to the atomic topology gained with STM....
  • SThM, scanning thermal microscopy
    Scanning thermal microscopy

    Scanning thermal microscopy is a type of scanning probe microscopy that maps the local temperature and thermal conductivity of an interface. The probe in a scanning thermal microscope is sensitive to local temperatures - providing a nanoscale thermometer....
  • STM, scanning tunneling microscopy
  • SVM, scanning voltage microscopy
    Scanning voltage microscopy

    Scanning voltage microscopy -- sometimes also called nanopotentiometry -- is a scientific experimental technique based on atomic force microscopy....
  • SHPM, scanning Hall probe microscopy
  • SSM, Scanning SQUID microscope
    Scanning SQUID microscope

    A Scanning SQUID Microscope is a sensitive near-field imaging system for the measurement of weak magnetic fields by moving a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device across an area....


Of these techniques AFM and STM are the most commonly used followed by MFM and SNOM/NSOM.

Other microscopes

Scanning acoustic microscope
Scanning acoustic microscope

A Scanning Acoustic Microscope is a device which uses focused sound to investigate, measure, or image an object . It is commonly used in failure analysis and non-destructive evaluation....
s use sound waves to measure variations in acoustic impedance. Similar to Sonar
Sonar

Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigation, communicate with or detect other vessels. There are two kinds of sonar: active and passive....
 in principle, they are used for such jobs as detecting defects in the subsurfaces of materials including those found in integrated circuits.

See also

  • Acronyms in microscopy
  • Angular resolution
    Angular resolution

    Angular resolution describes the resolving power of any such as an Optical telescope or radio telescope, a microscope, a camera, or an eye....
  • Bright field microscopy
    Bright field microscopy

    Bright field microscopy is the simplest of all the optical microscopy illumination techniques. Sample illumination is transmitted White. The most common use of the microscope involves the use of an organism mounted to a glass microscope slide....
  • Condensed Matter Physics
    Condensed matter physics

    Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter. In particular, it is concerned with the "condensed" phase that appear whenever the number of constituents in a system is extremely large and the interactions between the constituents are strong....
  • Confocal microscopy
    Confocal microscopy

    Confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique used to increase micrograph contrast and/or to reconstruct three-dimensional s by using a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light or Lens flare in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane....
  • Dark field microscopy
    Dark field microscopy

    Dark field microscopy describes microscopy methods, in both light and electron microscopy, which exclude the unscattered beam from the image. As a result, the field around the specimen is generally dark....
  • Digital microscope
    Digital microscope

    A digital microscope uses optics and a charge-coupled device camera to output a digital image to a monitor. A digital microscope differs from an optical microscope in that there is no provision to observe the sample directly through an eye piece....
  • Electron Microscope
    Electron microscope

    An electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses a particle beam of electrons to illuminate a specimen and create a highly-magnified image....
  • Fluorescence interference contrast microscopy
    Fluorescence interference contrast microscopy

    Fluorescence interference contrast microscopy is a microscopy technique developed to achieve z-resolution on the nanometer scale.FLIC occurs whenever fluorescent objects are in the vicinity of a reflecting surface ....
  • Fluorescence microscope
    Fluorescence microscope

    A fluorescence microscope is a light microscope used to study properties of organic or inorganic substances using the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence instead of, or in addition to, Reflection and absorption ....
  • Microscope image processing
    Microscope image processing

    Microscope image processing is a broad term that covers the use of digital image processing techniques to process, analyze and present images obtained from a microscope....
  • Microscopy
    Microscopy

    Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples or objects. There are three well-known branches of microscopy, optical microscopy, electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy....
  • Optical Microscope
    Optical microscope

    The optical microscope, often referred to as the "light microscope", is a type of microscope which uses visible light and a system of lens to magnify images of small samples....
  • Intel Play
    Intel Play

    The Intel Play product line, made by Intel, is a product line of consumer "toy" electronic devices which can be used to gather scientific data....
  • Phase contrast microscopy
    Phase contrast microscopy

    Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy illumination technique in which small phase shifts in the light passing through a transparent specimen are converted into amplitude or contrast changes in the image....
  • Microscope slide
    Microscope slide

    A microscope slide was originally a 'slider' made of ivory or bone, containing specimens held between disks of transparent mica. These were popular in Victorian era England until the Royal Microscopical Society introduced the standardized microscope slide in the form of a thin sheet of glass used to hold objects for examination under a micro...
  • Telescope
    Telescope

    A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
  • Timeline of microscope technology
    Timeline of microscope technology

    Timeline of microscope technology* 1021 - The properties of magnifying glass are first clearly described by the Islamic physics, Ibn al-Haytham , in his Book of Optics....
  • X-ray microscope
    X-ray microscope

    An X-ray microscope uses electromagnetic radiation in the soft X-ray band to produce images of very small objects.Unlike visible light, X-rays do not reflect or refract easily, and they are invisible to the human eye....
  • Microscopy laboratory in: A Study Guide to the Science of Botany at Wikibooks
  • Laser capture microdissection
    Laser capture microdissection

    Laser capture microdissection is a method for isolating specific cell s of interest from microscopic regions of tissue that has been sectioned....


External links

  • at Nature.com