Which is more powerful, optical microscope or electron microscope?
With the rapid development of science and technology, the application prospect of electron microscope in the field of microscopy is very broad, which shows its unique advantages compared with optical microscope. However, because the application technologies and fields of optical microscope and electron microscope are different, electron microscope can not completely replace optical microscope.
In the application of biology, the resolution of optical microscope is far less than that of electron microscope, because the resolution of optical microscope is limited by diffraction limit, so its resolution cannot be less than half the wavelength of incident light. That is, if the incident light of 400nm is used, the observation object cannot be less than 200nm. However, due to its real-time and dynamic observation, its position in biology is unparalleled, so it is impossible to leave fluorescence microscope and confocal optical microscope in the field of biology. The resolution of electron microscope can easily reach nanometer level because it uses electron beam to scan and image, which is irreplaceable for the application of high resolution imaging.
In the application of metallographic analysis, the magnification of electron microscope is far higher than that of optical microscope. The maximum magnification of modern electron microscope has exceeded 3 million times, while the maximum magnification of optical microscope is about 2000 times, so electron microscope can directly observe the atoms of some heavy metals and the orderly atomic lattice in crystals.
