ABSTRACT
The desire for ever higher quality images and improved resolution has led to significant advances in both theoretical optical physics and practical engineering and, as new photonics technology has been invented, this has rapidly been applied in optical microscopy. However, before presenting the details of both the imaging process and subsequent practical implementation of the methods it is worth considering optical microscopy in a historical perspective. Optical microscopy is therefore now helping to reduce the use of multiple animals in studies – an important ethical consideration in all experiments. In general a method of microscopy is described by the contrast mechanism by which the sample is being viewed such as fluorescence, polarization, Raman and second harmonic. Improvements to the microscope were then made through advances in lens fabrication led by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the Netherlands. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
