Why is an inverted microscope an "inverted" microscope?
The composition of the inverted microscope is the same as that of the ordinary microscope, except that the objective lens and the illumination system are reversed, and the object is located in front of the objective lens, and the distance away from the objective lens is greater than the focal length of the objective lens, but less than twice the focal length of the objective lens. After the objective lens, an inverted magnified solid image is formed. What our eyes see through the eyepiece is not the object itself, but a magnified image of the object made by the objective lens.
Because the material observed by inverted microscope is generally cultured cells, transparency, structural contrast is not obvious, so the inverted microscope is often equipped with phase contrast objective lens, which actually constitutes the inverted phase contrast microscope.
On inverted microscopes, different types of consumables such as petri dishes and multi-well plates are often used, with varying thicknesses at the bottom, which can cause some changes to the light travelling through them. At this time, it is necessary to use the objective lens with a correction ring function, which is equipped with a ring in the middle of the adjustment ring, when turning the adjustment ring, you can adjust the distance between the lens group within the objective lens, thus correcting the aberration caused by the coverslip (Petri dish) thickness is not standard (conventional Petri dish is 1.2mm, coverslip is 0.17mm). The correct way to use it is as follows: Set the correction ring to the standard value of 1.2mm and focus on the sample. Adjust the calibration ring to the right half a frame, then focus on the sample, if the image effect becomes better, then adjust to the right again and focus, and vice versa to the left.
Inverted Biomicroscope Enables Dual Channel FunctionalityThe addition of 1 infinity light path to the product allows you to introduce additional light sources to enable techniques such as FRAP, photoactivation, laser ablation, laser tweezers or optogenetics.
The inverted microscope was born to adapt to microscopic observation in the fields of biology and medicine, such as tissue culture, cell in vitro culture, plankton, environmental protection and food inspection. Due to the special limitations of these samples, the objects to be examined are placed in petri dishes (or culture flasks), which requires the objective lens and spotting scope of the inverted microscope to have a long working distance and be able to carry out microscopic observation and research of the objects to be examined in the petri dishes directly. Therefore, the position of the objective lens, spotting scope and light source are reversed, from which the name "inverted" is derived.
