Science Lab

The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems offers scientific research and teaching material on the subjects of microscopy. The content is designed to support 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!

Material sample with a large height, size, and weight being observed with an inverted microscope.

Five Inverted-Microscope Advantages for Industrial Applications

With inverted microscopes, you look at samples from below since their optics are placed under the sample, with upright microscopes you look at samples from above. Traditionally, inverted microscopes…

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) stained with osmium tetroxide (OsO4), sectioned with a DIATOME diamond knife at room temperature, and then imaged with HAADF TEM.

Ultramicrotomy Techniques for Materials Sectioning

Learn about ultramicrotomy for materials sectioning when investigating polymers and brittle materials with transmission (TEM) or scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or atomic force microscopy.

Fast Visual and Chemical Analysis of Contamination and Underlying Layers

Visual and chemical analysis of contamination on materials with a 2-methods-in-1 solution leading to an efficient, more complete analysis workflow is described in this report. A 2-in-1 solution,…

Top Issues Related to Standards for Rating Non-Metallic Inclusions in Steel

Supplying components and products made of steel to users worldwide can require that a single batch be compliant with multiple steel quality standards. This user demand creates significant challenges…

Analyzing Non-metallic Inclusions in Steel

Oftentimes we find ourselves caught up in tedious analyses by reticle and comparison chart, time-consuming double-evaluation according to several standards or subjective inspection results with a bias…

Performing Elemental Analysis down to the Micro Scale

If you work in electronic component analysis, you will be familiar with the many challenges posed. Whether you are identifying metallic particles or checking product authenticity, it’s important to…

Rate the Quality of Your Steel: Free Webinar and Report

This webinar and report describe optimal microscopy solutions for rating steel quality in terms of non-metallic inclusions and reviews the various international and regional standards concerning…

Simplify and Speed Up Element Analysis at the Micron Range

Learn how to get spatially resolved information about the chemical composition of elements in seconds - quickly and easily.

Polarizing Microscope Image Gallery

Polarized light microscopy (also known as polarizing microscopy) is an important method used in different fields, including research and quality assurance. It goes beyond just producing images at high…