ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore the principles underlying how the LM and CM work, how to operate them, and a number of applications in biology and medicine where these techniques have been used successfully.1-9
Although optical microscopy was developed and re ned hundreds of years ago, beginning with the invention of the compound microscope by Janssen in 1590, it has undergone a remarkable resurgence of interest in its applications in biology and medicine. Witness the advent of Nomarski, phase contrast, and bright-eld/dark-eld optics to obtain better contrast images via the use of the polarizing optics with a red plate to determine orientation of cellulose micro brils in cell walls, digital image processing for contrast enhancement (video-enhanced contrast microscopy or VECM), UV §uorescence microscopy, and optical sectioning via CM. In this section, we cover the basic structural features of light or optical microscopy, illustrate a typical research light microscope in use today, and then show several applications in the use of these techniques with biological systems.
