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Questions tagged [microscopy]

295 questions
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Why no proton microscopes? Proton diffraction; or proton scattering experiments? Proton crystallography?

I am asking a (relatively) 'low-energy' question here, not about things like the Large Hadron Collider... There are tons of articles everywhere, including such places as Wikipedia and ScienceDirect, that talk at length about probing condensed matter…
Kurt Hikes
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What do ants see?

After watching some ants in my garden today, and then looking at this very illuminating demonstration, I got to wondering, about what they would see. Not specifically ants (I understand their eyesight is quite poor), but similarly small, or even…
Sam
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Can we make images of single atoms?

I was wondering how far in imaging physics had gotten. Do we hold the technology to actually take a picture of, say, an alpha particle, or even a single atom? I realise we aren't talking about camera pictures, so what kind of imaging techniques have…
Ole Christian
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How do a microscope's optics expose defects in the user's vision?

I've got cataracts in both eyes. My vision is correctable to 20/30, so the cataracts are essentially a non-issue in daily living. But when I use a microscope, which I do daily, (binocular, zoom 7x-30x) the picture I see is occluded in the area where…
Lenny
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Which is the smallest known particle that scientists have actually *seen with their eyes*?

Which is the smallest particle that has been actually seen by the scientists? When I say "actually seen", (may be using some ultra advanced microscope or any other man made eye, using any wavelength or phenomena) I really mean it; just like we have…
gpuguy
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Why don't we have proton/neutron microscopes?

According to wave-particle duality it should be possible for protons/neutrons to have wavelengths shorter than those of electrons having similar velocity. So why don't we use proton/neutron microscopes for probing into further detail.
Suhrid Mulay
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Could you image something using a quark microscope?

As all quarks are fermions, just like electrons, would it be possible to use them to image things smaller than can be imaged using electron microscopes through similar means? (This question may not make any sense, my knowledge is not very in depth I…
Juptier
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Has the Nobel committee mixed up this years prizes for Physics and Chemistry?

The title of the question is tongue-in-cheek but the question remains: How does the Nobel committee delineate the fields when awarding work which is of such an inter-disciplinary nature. The chemistry award involves microscopy and the physics award…
Sridhar
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PSF Measurements In Fluorescence Imaging

Quite a technical question! I have measured the Point Spread Function of 100nm fluorescent breads with my Olympus scanning head. I'm two-photon exciting the beads with a wavelength of 800nm and focused in the sample with a 100x with N.A.: 1.4 The…
Steve
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Total internal reflection in a sphere

I am attempting to measure the size of water in oil emulsions under a microscope. I generate the bubbles from a microfluidic device with a mineral oil continuous fluid ($n \approx 1.47$) and stabilized with a surfactant (1% w/w in oil). Inside the…
adquint7
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How does QM allow imaging of individual electron orbitals?

Question: Why does the uncertainty principle allow probing of characteristics specific to the electron orbital distribution? If you measure an electron's position/momentum, then after you measure it, it is obviously no longer in that exact same…
Alan Rominger
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How is the Rayleigh criterion connected to the Abbe limit?

I am interrested whether one can derive a formula for the point resolution (like Abbe did) of an optical system from the Rayleigh criterion (without the use of small angle approximation i.e. $\rm{sin}(\alpha)=\rm{tan}(\alpha)$ which is not really…
Felix Kern
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Why does the colour of a thing change when under huge magnification?

For instance, this image: shows human eyelashes close up. The lashes look green, in fact the whole surface area has a strange tint of green Why is this?
user36305
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Compound microscope vs astronomical telescope

In compound microscope, we take such an objective lens which has small focal length. While in astronomical telescope, we take such an objective lens which has large focal length. Why don't we use same objective lens in both? The function of both…
Rafique
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Optics alignment of a confocal scanning microscope

I am facing a challenge in my project regarding optical alignment. See the figure: The challenge is with the vertical optical system alignment. I considered placing a mirror and check back if the image and source coincide. But since the light is…
Rene Duchamp
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