Compound light microscope During the first decades of the 20th century, the compound light microscope was

the instrument commonly used in microbiology. The observation of microbial cells requires not only the use of microscopes but also the preparation of the cells in a manner appropriate for the particular kind of microscopy. A compound light microscope is a type of microscope that allows you to view certain slides in color, which allows for you to determine the contrast between various parts. The compound microscope has two systems of lenses for greater magnification, the ocular, or eyepiece lens that one looks into and the objective lens, or the lens closest to the object

Dark field microscopy Dark-field microscopy is ideally used to illuminate unstained samples causing them to appear brightly lit against a dark background. Dark field microscopy or dark ground microscopy describes microscopy methods, in both light and electron microscopy, which exclude the unscattered beam from the image. The field around the specimen is generally dark.

Phase contrast microscopy Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy technique that converts phase shifts in light passing through a transparent specimen to brightness changes in the image. Phase shifts themselves are invisible, but become visible when shown as brightness variations. The possible applications of Zernikes phase contrast microscope in microscopy are evident in the fields of molecular and cellular biology, microbiology and medical research. Specimens that can be observed and studied include live microorganisms such as protozoa, erythrocytes, bacteria, molds and sperm, thin tissue slices, lithographic patterns, fibers, glass fragments and sub-cellular particles such as nuclei and organelles.

Differential interference contrast Differential interference contrast microscopy, also known as Nomarski Interference Contrast or Nomarski microscopy. Is an optical microscopy illumination technique used to enhance the contrast in unstained, transparent samples. Produces clearer images of relatively thick specimens The resulting image is one that has a very topographic appearance. It looks as though you are looking down on the specimen while it is being lit strongly from one side.

Fluorescence microscope In microbiology, the microorganisms can be stained with a fluorescent dye, like fluorochrome, in order to produce fluorescent images through UV microscope. The main application of fluorescence microscopy in microbiology is the technique of identification of immunological reactions, I mean, of antigen-antibody reactions. A fluorescence microscope is an optical microscope that uses fluorescence and phosphorescence instead of, or in addition to, reflection and absorption to study properties of organic or inorganic substances.

Confocal microscopy Confocal microscopy is a non-invasive fluorescent imaging technique that uses lasers of various colors to scan across a specimen with the aid of scanning mirrors. The use of confocal microscopy has expanded to study both fixed and live cells with the ability to quantify targets. Confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique used to increase optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by using point illumination and a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-offocus light in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane.

Transmission Electron Microscopy An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons transmitted through the specimen; the image is magnified and focused onto an imaging device, such as a fluorescent screen, on a layer of photographic film, or to be detected by a sensor. Capable of imaging at a significantly higher resolution than light microscopes, owing to the small de Broglie wavelength of electrons. This enables the instrument's user to examine fine detail; even as small as a single column of atoms, which is thousands of times smaller than the smallest resolvable object in a light microscope. Transmission electron microscopy has a 100,000x magnification.

Scanning Electron Microscopy Produces images of a sample by scanning it with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that can be detected and that contain information about the sample's surface topography and composition. Scanning Electron Microscopy has a 10x to 500,000X magnification Scanning Tunneling microscope The principle of the STM can be compared best with that of a record player, the instrument uses a sharp needle, referred to as the tip, to interrogate the shape of the surface. But in contrast with a normal record player, the STM tip does not touch the surface. The STM operates in the regime

of extremely small distances between the tip and the surface of only 0.5 to 1.0 nm, i.e. 2 to 4 atomic diameters. At these distances, the electrons can jump from the tip to the surface or vice versa. This jumping is a quantum mechanical process, known as tunneling. Hence the name of this microscope: tunneling microscope. The tunneling process is very difficult, which implies that the tunneling current is always very low. STMs usually operate at tunneling currents between a few picoAmperes and a few nanoAmperes The tunneling current depends very critically on the precise distance between the last atom of the tip and the nearest atom or atoms of the underlying specimen. When this distance is increased only a little bit, the tunneling current decreases strongly. As a rule of thumb, for every extra atom diameter that is added to the distance, the current becomes a factor 1000 lower! This means that the tunneling current provides a highly sensitive measure of the distance between the tip and the surface.