Which is better, Microscope or Electron Microscope?
With the rapid development of science and technology, the application prospect of electron microscope in the microscopic field is very broad, and it shows its unique advantages compared with optical microscope. However, because the technologies and fields of application of optical microscopes and electron microscopes are different, electron microscopes cannot completely replace optical microscopes.
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, so its resolution cannot be less than half the wavelength of the incident light. That is to say, if incident light of 400nm is used, the observed object cannot be smaller than 200nm. However, because it can perform real-time and dynamic observation, its status in biology is unparalleled. It is impossible to leave optical microscopes such as fluorescence microscopes and confocals in the field of biology. Since the electron microscope uses electron beams to scan and image, its resolution can easily reach the nanometer level, which is irreplaceable for the application of high-resolution imaging.
In the application of metallographic analysis, the magnification of the electron microscope is far higher than that of the optical microscope. The maximum magnification of the modern electron microscope has exceeded 3 million times, while the maximum magnification of the optical microscope is about 2000 times. Microscopes can directly observe the atoms of some heavy metals and the neatly arranged atomic lattices in crystals.
