Microscopy Research Paper

Microscopy is one of science’s greatest innovations. The microscope has revolutionised countless areas of scientific research and has become an icon of science itself. From Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovering micro-organisms in the 1670’s to the highly powerful atomic microscopes used today, microscopy has furthered scientific knowledge in many, many ways [1]. It has practical applications in very many areas of research such as biotechnology, materials science, microbiology, environmental science etc. Its wide array of uses is reflected by the many different types of microscope e.g. compound microscopes, electron microscopes, fluorescence microscopes etc. The field of microscopy has advanced greatly over the past century and the technologies …show more content…
The methods used to achieve these tasks is what differentiates them. Microscopes can be divided into optical and non-optical. Optical microscopes (or light microscopes), are a type of microscope which uses visible light and a system of lenses to magnify images. The most common type of optical microscope is the compound microscope. A compound microscope uses two or more lenses to produce a magnified image of an object placed on a slide [4]. Non-optical microscopes uses methods other than visible light (such as non-visible light or fluorescence) to view specimens. These non-optical microscopes can then render an image that is displayed via a computer program. An important type of non-optical microscopy is electron microscopy. Electron microscopes use beams of electrons to render images [5]. As electron wavelengths are many thousands of times shorter than the wavelengths of visible light electron microscope can show much greater detail than optical microscopes. Electron microscopy has led to advancements in very many areas of scientific research such as structural biology, nanotechnology, forensics, pharmacology