Kinds of Microscopes?

Question

I only want to know what are the kinds of Microscopes

Answer 1

There are lots of types of microscopes - as The One Who Knows has pointed out. These include:

Optical Microscopes (or "Light Microscopes") which, as the name suggests, use light to visualise the object. Simple Mmicroscopes have only one lens (so are effectively just fancy magnifying glasses), while Compound Microscopes have multiple lenses, achieving a much higher magnification.
Within these categories, you can have Reflection Microscopes, which view light that bounces off the subject, and Transmission microscopes, which view light that passes through a transparent (or very thin) sample. The "typical" microscope, which uses samples on glass slides will be a compount transmission light microscope.
You can also get sophisticated optical systems - like Phase Contrast or Interference Contrast - which allow you to see things that are normally transparent, without having to stain them. This is how live cells are viewed down a 'scope.

Fluorescence Microscopes use fluorescent light, and fluorescing dyes, to label and view specific things (like particular proteins inside a cell). One particlarly sophisticated kind of fluorescent microscope is called a Scanning Fonfocal Fluorescent Microscope - which uses a laser to illuminate the object. The "Ultraviolet Microscope" that The One Who Knows mentioned would be a fluorescent microscope. An advantage to fluorescent microscopy is that you can label different targets different colours, so you might dye the DNA red and a particular protein green; filters can be used to cut out particular colours, so you can view each thing independantly in the same sample, and ask questions like "is this protein in the nucleus? What about if I trat the cells with a toxic chemical - is it in the nucleus now?"

One limitation to using light (put simply) is that you cannot view objects that are the same size or smaller than the wavelength of the light you are using. So shorter wavelengths let you see smaller things (which is one reason why UV is good) - but to see *really* small things, you need to use something else.
Electron Microscopes (EM) use electrons instead of light. The sample is put in a vaccum (usually), and bombarded with a beam of electrons. These eelctrons can be focussed with magnetic fields, in the same way that light is focussed by glass lenses. Heavy metal dyes (like uranium salts, molybdenum, tungsten, osmium, and others) are used to stain the sample, as they block electrons (while the less dense biological materials just let them pass through). However, because electrons have no "colour", all EM images are black and white.

In Transmission EM, a phosphor plate is placed under the sample, and it phorphoresces when it is struck by electrons that have passed through your sample. The light emitted can then be viewed by eye; dark patches indicate where the electrons have been blocked.

In Scanning EM, a detector "sees" electrons that have been emitted by the sample, as it is bombarded by the high-energy emectrons. SEM allows you to see the surface of your saple.

Reflection EM detects electrons that bounce back from the surface of the sample.

Fancy sample-preparation techniques can allow you to see the topography of the surface of your sample, or allow you to stain different things in the sample with specially-sized gold particles (like staining with different fluorescent dyes) to find where they are.

Another high-magnification method is Atomic Force Microscopy. This actually doesn't use light or radiation at all to directly visualise the sample. A very fine needle ("stylus") is dragged over the sample, and the way the needle flexes shows the topography of the substrate. It is a bit like a super-fancy vinyl LP player.

Check out some of the wikipedia antries below.

Answer 2

Classification is based on the radiation used to illuminate the object:


1) Optical microscopes - further divided into a) simple and b) compound microscopes based on achievable magnification etc. and i) transmission and ii) reflection microscopes depending on the type of illumination and biological / metallurgical microscopes depending on application etc.

2) Ultraviolet Microscopes


3) Electron Microscopes - Scanning Electron Micrsocope and Transmission Electron Microscope

4) Acoustic Microscopes - use ultrasound for imaging

and so on.

Answer 3

There are many types of microscopes available on the market. It mostly depend on the type of work you do, while browsing for a new microscope. For example: you have compound microscopes for more demanding studies and stereo microscopes for simple undertakings. Still, you will find on the market some of the following microscopes: digital microscopes, USB microscopes, handheld microscopes, lab stereo microscopes, research grade microscope, biological microscope, compound light microscopes and kids microscopes. There is something for everyone.

Answer 4

theres also an electron microscope which shoots subatomic particles at a certain ares, and by the bouncing of these said particles, one can "see" the molecular structures of the thing on the stage.

Answer 5

Industrial microscopes, include all the above.
Include PCB, SWIR and more

Answer 6

simple microscope - these are magnifying glasses, etc
compound microscope - the one that we use in the laboratory
beam and laser microscope - more effecient especially for scientists...