The optical microscope: how it works and how it developed
Optical Microscope (Optical Microscope, abbreviated OM) is the use of optical principles, the human eye can not distinguish the tiny objects magnified imaging, for people to extract the microstructure of the information of optical instruments.
As early as the first century B.C., people have found that through the spherical transparent object to observe small objects, can make it magnified imaging. Later on, gradually on the spherical glass surface can make the object magnified image of the law of understanding. 1590, the Netherlands and Italy's eyeglasses makers have built similar microscope magnifying instruments. 1610 around the time of Italy's Galileo and Germany's Kepler in the study of the telescope at the same time, change the distance between the objective lens and the eyepiece, to come up with a reasonable structure of the optical circuit of the microscope, optical craftsmen were engaged in the manufacturing, promotion and dissemination of optical equipment, and the microscope. At that time, optical craftsmen were engaged in the manufacture, promotion and improvement of microscopes.
In the middle of the 17th century, Robert Hooke of England and Levenhuk of Holland made outstanding contributions to the development of the microscope, and around 1665, Hooke added the coarse-action and micro-action focusing mechanism, the illumination system, and the table for carrying specimen slices to the microscope. These components were continuously improved and became the basic components of the modern microscope.
Between 1673 and 1677, Levin Hooke made high magnification microscopes with a single-component magnifying glass, nine of which have survived to the present day. Hooker and Levine-Hooker used the homemade microscope, in the animal and plant organism microstructure of the research made outstanding achievements. 19th century, the appearance of high-quality achromatic immersion objective, so that the microscope to observe the ability of microstructures greatly improved. 1827 Amici the first to use the immersion objective. 1870s, the German Abbey laid down the classical theoretical basis of the imaging of the microscope. These contributed to the rapid development of microscope manufacturing and microscopic observation techniques, and provided biologists and medical scientists, including Koch and Pasteur, with a powerful tool for the discovery of bacteria and microorganisms in the second half of the 19th century.
While the structure of the microscope itself was developing, microscopic observation techniques were also being innovated: polarised light microscopy appeared in 1850; interferometric microscopy appeared in 1893; and in 1935, the Dutch physicist Zelnick created phase contrast microscopy, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1953.
The classical optical microscope was simply a combination of optical and precision mechanical elements, which used the human eye as a receiver to observe the magnified image. Later, a photographic device was added to the microscope, and a photographic film was used as the receiver to record and store the image. Modern and commonly used photoelectric components, television tubes and charge couplers as the receiver of the microscope, with a micro-computer constitutes a complete image information acquisition and processing system.
Surface for the curved surface of glass or other transparent materials made of optical lenses can make the object magnified image, optical microscope is the use of this principle to magnify the tiny objects to the human eye enough to observe the size. Modern optical microscopes usually use two stages of magnification, completed by the objective lens and eyepiece. The object to be observed is located in front of the objective lens, the first stage of magnification by the objective lens into an inverted solid image, and then this solid image by the eyepiece for the second stage of magnification, into an imaginary image, the human eye to see is the imaginary image. The total magnification of a microscope is the product of the magnification of the objective lens and the magnification of the eyepiece. The magnification is the ratio of the magnification of the linear dimensions, not the area ratio.
