What are some of the disadvantages of optical microscopes?
Optical microscope (English Optical Microscope, abbreviated as OM) is an optical instrument that uses optical principles to magnify and image tiny objects that cannot be distinguished by the human eye, so that people can extract fine structural information. Ordinary optical microscopes cannot see 1 nanometer.
For applications in biology, the resolving power of an optical microscope is far inferior to that of an electron microscope. Because the resolution of an optical microscope is limited by the diffraction limit, its resolution cannot be less than half the wavelength of the incident light. In other words, if 400nm incident light is used, the observation object cannot be smaller than 200nm. However, because it can carry out real-time and dynamic observation, its status in biology is unparalleled. It is impossible to leave optical microscopes such as fluorescence microscopes and confocal microscopes in the field of biology. Since electron microscopes use electron beams to scan and image, their resolution can easily reach the nanometer level, which is irreplaceable for high-resolution imaging applications.
What is the maximum magnification of an optical microscope?
By improving the performance of the lens, ordinary optical microscopes can achieve a magnification of about 1000-1500 times, but it has never exceeded 2000 times.
The maximum magnification of an electron microscope is more than 3 million times, while the maximum magnification of an optical microscope is about 2,000 times. Therefore, the atoms of certain heavy metals and the neatly arranged atomic lattice in the crystal can be directly observed through the electron microscope.
Optical microscopes include not only optical microscopes that can magnify more than a thousand times, but also electron microscopes that can magnify hundreds of thousands of times, allowing us to have a better understanding of the laws of life activities of organisms. Most of the experiments stipulated in the general middle school biology syllabus must be completed through a microscope. Therefore, the performance of the microscope is the key to doing good observation experiments.
