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!
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…
Rapid Check of Live Stem Cells in Cell-Culture Inserts set in Multi-Well Plates
See how efficient imaging of live iPSC stem cells within cell-culture inserts set in a multi-well plate can be done to evaluate the cells using a THUNDER Imager. Just read this article.
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.
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.
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…
Eyepieces, Objectives and Optical Aberrations
This article covers the components of the eyepieces and how to adjust them correctly to suit your eyes.
Koehler Illumination: A Brief History and a Practical Set Up in Five Easy Steps
In this article, we will look at the history of the technique of Koehler Illumination in addition to how to adjust the components in five easy steps.
Collecting Light: The Importance of Numerical Aperture in Microscopy
Numerical aperture (abbreviated as ‘NA’) is an important consideration when trying to distinguish detail in a specimen viewed down the microscope. NA is a number without units and is related to the…
Optimization of the Interplay of Optical Components for Aberration Free Microscopy
Optical microscopes are used to magnify objects which are otherwise invisible for the human eye. For this purpose high quality optics is necessary to achieve appropriate resolution. However, besides…
