Science Lab

Learn. Share. Contribute. The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems. Find scientific research and teaching material on the subject of microscopy. The portal supports beginners, experienced practitioners and scientists alike in their everyday work and experiments. Explore interactive tutorials and application notes, discover the basics of microscopy as well as high-end technologies. Become part of the Science Lab community and share your expertise.

Immersion Objectives

How an immersion objective, which has a liquid medium between it and the specimen being observed, helps increase the numerical aperture and microscope resolution is explained in this article.

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.

Fluorescent Dyes

A basic principle in fluorescence microscopy is the highly specific visualization of cellular components with the help of a fluorescent agent. This can be a fluorescent protein – for example GFP –…

A Guide to Darkfield Microscopes

A darkfield microscope offers a way to view the structures of many types of biological specimens in greater contrast without the need of stains.

Perform Microscopy Analysis for Pathology Ergonomically and Efficiently

The main performance features of a microscope which are critical for rapid, ergonomic, and precise microscopic analysis of pathology specimens are described in this article. Microscopic analysis of…

How to Sanitize a Microscope

Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, there are a lot of questions regarding decontamination methods of microscopes for safe usage. This informative article summarizes general decontamination…

Digital Classroom Options

As teachers, you know your big challenge is to catch and keep the students’ attention and the best chance for this is by making the environment interactive. In the case of the Microscopy Classroom, we…

Resolved Field Number (RFN)

The field number (FN) for optical microscopes indicates the field of view (FOV). It corresponds to the area in the intermediate image that is observable through the eyepieces. Although, we cannot…

What is a Field-of-View Scanner?

A field-of-view scanner is an assembly of galvanometric scanning mirrors used in single-point confocal microscopes that offer the correct optical recording of large field sizes. The field-of-view…