Leica Microsystems: Science Lab

Science Lab

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Image of a Siemens star, where the diameter of the 1st black line circle is 10 mm and the 2nd is 20 mm, taken via an eyepiece of a M205 A stereo microscope. The rectangles represent the field of view (FOV) of a Leica digital camera when installed with various C-mounts (red 0.32x, blue 0.5x, green 0.63x).

Understanding Clearly the Magnification of Microscopy

To help users better understand the magnification of microscopy and how to determine the useful range of magnification values for digital microscopes, this article provides helpful guidelines.

Intensity distribution (arbitrary color coding) of an image of two points where the distance between them corresponds to the Rayleigh criterion.

Microscope Resolution: Concepts, Factors and Calculation

This article explains in simple terms microscope resolution concepts, like the Airy disc, Abbe diffraction limit, Rayleigh criterion, and full width half max (FWHM). It also discusses the history.

Collecting Light: The Importance of Numerical Aperture in Microscopy

Numerical aperture (abbreviated as ‘NA’) is an important consideration when trying to distinguish detail in a specimen viewed down the microscope. NA is a number without units and is related to the…

A 17th-century compound microscope (© Golub Collection – University of California, Berkeley/Steven Ruzin, Curator)

A Brief History of Light Microscopy

The history of microscopy begins in the Middle Ages. As far back as the 11th century, plano-convex lenses made of polished beryl were used in the Arab world as reading stones to magnify manuscripts.…

Optical Microscopes – Some Basics

The optical microscope has been a standard tool in life science as well as material science for more than one and a half centuries now. To use this tool economically and effectively, it helps a lot to…

Confocal Optical Section Thickness

Confocal microscopes are employed to optically slice comparably thick samples.

Object planes of the Greenough stereomicroscope with depth of field range.

Depth of Field in Microscopy

In microscopy, depth of field is often seen as an empirical parameter. In practice it is determined by the correlation between numerical aperture, resolution and magnification. For the best possible…

Beware of "Empty" Magnification

This article explains how to avoid the phenomen of "empty magnification" in microscopy.