Leica Microsystems: Leica 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!

Infinity Optical Systems

“Infinity Optics” refers to the concept of a beam path with parallel rays between the objective and the tube lens of a microscope. Flat optical components can be brought into this “Infinity Space”…

Imaging of Host Cell-bacteria Interactions using Correlative Microscopy under Cryo-conditions

Pathogenic bacteria have developed intriguing strategies to establish and promote infections in their respective hosts. Most bacterial pathogens initiate infectious diseases by adhering to host cells…

Cataract Surgery with CoAx4 Illumination

A stable red reflex is one of the most important features of an ophthalmic surgical microscope for cataract surgery. It’s the red reflex that makes the structure of the lens visible and thus makes for…

Workflows & Protocols: How to Isolate Individual Chromosomes with Laser Microdissection

During the first Leica Workshop in Brazil, at the Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura/USP (CENA), the participants learned how to prepare samples for laser microdissection (LMD) using a cryotome.…

A 17th-century compound microscope (© Golub Collection – University of California, Berkeley/Steven Ruzin, Curator)

A Brief History of Light Microscopy

The history of microscopy begins in the Middle Ages. As far back as the 11th century, plano-convex lenses made of polished beryl were used in the Arab world as reading stones to magnify manuscripts.…

From Light to Mind: Sensors and Measuring Techniques in Confocal Microscopy

This article outlines the most important sensors used in confocal microscopy. By confocal microscopy, we mean "True Confocal Scanning", i.e. the technique that illuminates and measures one single…

Workflows & Protocols: How to Use a Leica Laser Microdissection System and Qiagen Kits for Successful RNA Analysis

Laser Microdissection (LMD) allows isolating individual cells or chromosomes and is a well established technique for sample preparation prior downstream analysis of the nucleic acid content via PCR or…

Schematic graph of the light path in a Spalt-Ultramikroskop.

Confocal and Light Sheet Imaging

Optical imaging instrumentation can magnify tiny objects, zoom in on distant stars and reveal details that are invisible to the naked eye. But it notoriously suffers from an annoying problem: the…

Universal PAINT – Dynamic Super-Resolution Microscopy

Super-resolution microscopy techniques have revolutionized biology for the last ten years. With their help cellular components can now be visualized at the size of a protein. Nevertheless, imaging…