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Science Lab

Science Lab

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!
Image of MDCK (Madin-Darby canine kidney) cells taken with phase contrast.

Phase Contrast and Microscopy

This article explains phase contrast, an optical microscopy technique, which reveals fine details of unstained, transparent specimens that are difficult to see with common brightfield illumination.

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.

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…

Factors to Consider When Selecting a Research Microscope

An optical microscope is often one of the central devices in a life-science research lab. It can be used for various applications which shed light on many scientific questions. Thereby the…
Image source: Adobe Stock

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…

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…

The Fundamentals and History of Fluorescence and Quantum Dots

At some point in your research and science career, you will no doubt come across fluorescence microscopy. This ubiquitous technique has transformed the way in which microscopists can image, tag and…
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