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!

Brief Introduction to Coating Technology for Electron Microscopy

Coating of samples is required in the field of electron microscopy to enable or improve the imaging of samples. Creating a conductive layer of metal on the sample inhibits charging, reduces thermal…

Handbook of Optical Filters for Fluorescence Microscopy

Fluorescence microscopy and other light-based applications require optical filters that have demanding spectral and physical characteristics. Often, these characteristics are application-specific and…

Structural details of the C. elegans, head in cross-section. Courtesy of Müller-Reichert T, MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany, and McDonald K, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Brief Introduction to High-Pressure Freezing

Water is the most abundant cellular constituent and therefore important for preserving cellular ultra-structure. Currently the only way to fix cellular constituents without introducing significant…

Step by Step Guide for FRAP Experiments

Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) has been considered the most widely applied method for observing translational diffusion processes of macromolecules. The resulting information can be…

Widefield Calcium Imaging with Calcium Indicator Fura2

In eukaryotic cells Ca2+ is one of the most widespread second messengers used in signal transduction pathways. Intracellular levels of Ca2+ are usually kept low, as Ca2+ often forms insoluble…

Brief Introduction to Critical Point Drying

One of the uses of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is in the study of surface morphology in biological applications which requires the preservation of the surface details of a specimen. Samples…

Video Tutorial: How to Align the Bulb of a Fluorescence Lamp Housing

The traditional light source for fluorescence excitation is a fluorescence lamp housing with mercury burner. A prerequisite for achieving bright and homogeneous excitation is the correct centering and…

Video Tutorial: How to Change the Bulb of a Fluorescence Lamp Housing

When applying fluorescence microscopy in biological applications, a lamp housing with mercury burner is the most common light source. This video tutorial shows how to change the bulb of a traditional…

Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS)

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) measures fluctuations of fluorescence intensity in a sub-femtolitre volume to detect such parameters as the diffusion time, number of molecules or dark…