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.

Area of a printed circuit board (PCB) which was imaged with extended depth of field (EDOF) using digital microscopy.

Depth of Field in Microscope Images

For microscopy imaging, depth of field is an important parameter when needing sharp images of sample areas with structures having significant changes in depth. In practice, depth of field is…

These images show the microstructure of a hard metal with 10% cobalt which is used for heavy-duty tools. The large increase in magnification of the right image (compared to the left) has a risk of being outside the useful range or, in other words, empty magnification.

What is Empty Magnification and How can Users Avoid it

The phenomenon of “empty magnification”, which can occur while using an optical, light, or digital microscope, and how it can be avoided is explained in this article. The performance of an optical…

Images of the same area of a processed wafer taken with standard (left) and oblique (right) brightfield illumination using a Leica compound microscope. The defect on the wafer surface is clearly more visible with oblique illumination.

Rapid Semiconductor Inspection with Microscope Contrast Methods

Semiconductor inspection during the production of patterned wafers and ICs (integrated circuits) is important for identifying and minimizing defects. To increase the efficiency of quality control in…

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.

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.

How to Boost your Microelectronic Component Inspection Performance

Do you need to see more when inspecting silicon wafers or MEMS? Would you like to get sharp and detailed sample images which are similar to those from electron microscopes? Watch this free webinar…

Mouse kidney section with Alexa Fluor™ 488 WGA, Alexa Fluor™ 568 Phalloidin, and DAPI. Sample is a FluoCells™ prepared slide #3 from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA. Images courtesy of Dr. Reyna Martinez – De Luna, Upstate Medical University, Department of Ophthalmology.

The Power of Pairing Adaptive Deconvolution with Computational Clearing

Learn how deconvolution allows you to overcome losses in image resolution and contrast in widefield fluorescence microscopy due to the wave nature of light and the diffraction of light by optical…

Spherical aberration describes the fact that waves which pass through the centre of the lens are refracted less than the waves which pass through the edges of the curved lens.

Eyepieces, Objectives and Optical Aberrations

This article covers the components of the eyepieces and how to adjust them correctly to suit your eyes.