Photonics Dictionary

An instrument consisting essentially of a tube 160 mm long, with an objective lens at the distant end and an eyepiece at the near end. The objective forms a real aerial image of the object in the...

An eyepiece located at the near end of the microscope tube. It often is a simple Huygens eyepiece, but compensating and flat-field projection eyepieces are quite efficient. Negative eyepieces are...

The liquid used in microscopy to fill the space between the high-power objective lens and the microscope slide in order to increase the numerical aperture (NA) or collecting power in object space of...

The lens located at the object end of a microscope tube. A wide range of objectives is available, including simple achromats, the color-corrected apochromats and the flat-field objectives. Objectives...

The component of a microscope on which the sample or slide to be examined is placed. Depending on the design of the microscope, the stage may play a passive role of just supporting the sample or...

An atomic force microscope (AFM) is a high-resolution imaging and measurement instrument used in nanotechnology, materials science, and biology. It is a type of scanning probe microscope that...

A microscope to which a beamsplitter and illuminated reticle have been added to measure the radius of curvature of a spherical surface by locating both surface and center and calculating the distance...

A microscope designed with two eyepieces (oculars), permitting the use of both eyes when viewing through the instrument.

A microscope that allows examination of a small crystal and conveniently provides linearly polarized object and reference beams so that, by suitable orientation of an anisotropic crystal, the optical...

A microscope that can be used to observe and magnify microscope specimens while they are being centrifuged. The objective rotates near the periphery of the centrifuge head, and the ocular is...

A type of compound microscope that uses three visible wavelengths to translate details produced by invisible radiation.

Two microscopes that are coupled on a common stand, the two images being projected side by side in the field of view of a single eyepiece for comparison.

A microscope design that involves apertures inserted in conjugate plane positions inside the microscope, with one aperture in front of the illumination source and the other at the focal position in...

An instrument used to measure the coordinates of a point on an object such as a photographic plate.

A microscope that has been modified to permit the quantitative analysis of dust samples.

A device utilizing an electron beam for the observation and recording of submicroscopic samples with the aid of photographic emulsions or other short-wavelength sensors. With the electron microscope,...

A type of electron microscope in which the specimen also serves as the cathode source.

A microscope in which laser light is delivered through single-mode fibers that replace the pinhole usually used in confocal microscopy. When the Gaussian mode is imaged from the fiber output onto the...

An image-forming instrument in which a strong electrostatic field causes cold emission of electrons from a sharply rounded point or from an object that is located on that point. The electrons are...

An extremely powerful microscope that renders individual ionized atoms visible by using an electric field to propel the ions to a fluorescent screen where they are magnified.

A type of optical microscope that allows the specimen being viewed to be irradiated by ultraviolet, violet and occasionally blue radiation, causing the specimen to fluoresce.

A microscope that uses a flying spot scanner, directed through the eyepiece, as a light source to determine the features of a transparent specimen. The flying spot is modulated by the varying density...

A form of a stereoscopic microscope having paired objectives, prisms and eyepieces, and invented by H. Greenough.

An imaging device whose technology contributes three specific advantages: ability to study large solid specimens that exhibit behavior in bulk; conduction of in situ studies of radiation damage; and...

A type of microscope that uses radiation in the infrared region to illuminate objects that are opaque to visible radiation. The microscope consists of two illumination systems (transmitted and...

A special form of microscope that utilizes interference for observing and measuring the phase and optical thickness in completely transparent objects and specimen. The object is placed in one beam...

A microscope designed so that the specimen is located face down above the objective.

An imaging device originally created to image whole mouse brain volumes at microscopic resolution. The main component of the instrument is an automated microtome and microscope capable of producing...

A Michelson-type interference microscope used to produce interference patterns of reflective specimens through the interference between light reflected by the specimen and that reflected by a...

An interference microscope that uses a light beam originating from a low-coherence light source. The sample is placed in one interferometer arm, and the other arm provides a reference beam. The...

A variation of the atomic force microscope that operates by scanning a tiny ferromagnetic probe (or a magnetized tip) over a magnetic sample, and detecting the extremely small forces exerted on the...

A specially designed microscope for observing the etched surface of a polished metal specimen. The specimen is often laid face down on a horizontal stage and observed from beneath, the illumination...

A scanning probe microscope that analyzes the surface of a specimen by recording the intensity of light as it is focused through a pipette and raster scanned across the specimen at a distance less...

A microscope equipped with a polarizer, an analyzer and a Bertrand lens to focus on the upper focal plane of the objective. It is used chiefly by mineralogists and crystallographers for...

A microscope that has an annular stop in the lower focal plane of the condenser, and a quarter-wave retarding and absorbing ring in the upper focal plane of the objective that just fills the image of...

An instrument in which visible light beyond the critical angle from a metallurgical microscope is focused on a reference surface. A certain fraction of the incident light tunnels through air to the...

A microscope that uses an extremely fine x-ray focal point to produce an enlarged photographic image of a sample. Also known as an x-ray shadow microscope.

A microscope that uses a reflecting objective; often used with ultraviolet or infrared radiation.

Also called scanning laser acoustic microscope. A device that uses high-frequency ultrasound waves to penetrate surfaces. A scanning laser beam is used as a detector, which transmits information...

An electron microscope that uses a beam of electrons -- accelerated to high energy and focused on the sample -- to scan the sample surface, ejecting secondary electrons that form the picture of the...

See atomic force microscope; magnetic force microscope; near-field scanning optical microscope; scanning tunneling microscope.

A high-resolution imaging instrument that can detect and measure the positions of individual atoms on the surface of a material. A very fine conductive probe is placed at a distance of 10 to 20...

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that split a polarized beam of light into ordinary and extraordinary rays, then...

A mask-alignment microscope used to produce and inspect microcircuits in the electronics industry. It provides flat-field, distortion-free images at all magnifications with a high-intensity vertical...

Wide-field, low-magnification device that consists of two compound microscopes focused on a single object, producing an erect three-dimensional image.

A device designed to enlarge the image of a microscopic object by television process. It may be a flying spot scanner that is used to scan the microscope slide, or a camera tube-microscope...