Interactive Tutorials

Interactive tutorials have been developed to help students explore complex concepts in all phases of optical microscopy, the physics of light and color, photomicrography, and digital imaging technology. The tutorials are also embedded within relevant articles that contain accompanying discussions about the subject phenomenon.

Microscopy Basics


Confocal Microscopy


Digital Imaging


DIC Microscopy


Fluorescence Microscopy

  • Balancing Arc-Discharge Lamp Excitation Illumination

    Excitation filter balancers can be used to fine-tune fluorophore excitation.

  • Blue Excitation

    The Nikon blue excitation fluorescence filter combinations include bandpass and longpass sets having both broad and narrow excitation bandwidths.

  • Blue-Violet Excitation

    Exploring how the variations in the excitation and emission filter spectral profiles, as well as those of the dichromatic mirrors, affect signal levels, overall filter performance, and image contrast in combinations designed for excitation of fluorophores in the blue-violet region.

  • Dual Band Excitation

    Explore how the variations in the excitation and emission filter spectral profiles affect signal levels, overall filter performance, and image contrast in combinations designed for dual excitation of fluorophores in the ultraviolet and blue or blue and green regions.

  • Fluorescence Filter Noise Terminator

    Fluorescence filter block design that eliminates the possibility of residual stray light.

  • Fluorescent Protein Biosensors

    Descriptions of selected fluorescent protein biosensor mechanisms.

  • Focus and Alignment of Mercury and Xenon Arc Lamps

    Explore alignment and focusing of the arc lamp in a mercury or xenon burner, which simulates how the lamp is adjusted in a real microscope.


Live Cell Imaging


Optical Systems


Polarized Light

  • Polarized Light Waveforms

    This interactive tutorial explores the generation of linear, elliptical, and circularly polarized light by a pair of orthogonal light waves (as a function of the relative phase shift between the waves) when the electric field vectors are added together.

  • Polarizer Rotation and Specimen Birefringence

    Discover how specimen birefringence is affected by the angle of polarizer when observed in a polarized light microscope.


Phase Contrast

  • Apodized Phase Contrast

    Explore how specimen size affects the angle of diffracted light rays that pass through apodized phase plates.

  • Interaction of Light Waves with Phase Specimens

    Light waves are deformed by specimen geometry, refractive index, and thickness.

  • Optical Pathways in the Phase Contrast Microscope

    Examine the light pathways through a phase contrast microscope and learn how these systems dissect the incident electromagnetic wave into a surround (S), diffracted (D), and resultant particle (P) component.

  • Phase Contrast Microscope Alignment

    Learn how to align a phase contrast microscope and examine variations in specimen appearance through the eyepieces (at different magnifications) when the condenser annulus is shifted into and out of alignment with the phase plate in the objective.

  • Positive and Negative Phase Contrast

    This interactive tutorial explores relationships between the surround (S), diffracted (D), and resulting particle (P) waves in brightfield as well as positive and negative phase contrast microscopy.

  • Shade-Off and Halo Phase Contrast Artifacts

    Explore shade-off and halo artifacts, where the observed intensity does not directly correspond to the optical path difference (refractive index and thickness values) between the specimen and the surrounding medium.

  • Specimen Optical Path Length Variations

    Explore the effects of changes to refractive index and thickness on optical path length, and discover how two specimens can have different combinations of these variables but still display the same path length.


Stereomicroscopy

  • Stereomicroscope Optical Pathways

    Examine the light pathways in a Nikon stereomicroscope.

  • Stereomicroscopy Fluorescence

    Explore the light paths in Nikon's SMZ1500 stereomicroscope equipped for fluorescence illumination using an intermediate tube and external lamphouse.

  • Toroidal Mirrors

    Explore how mirror shape affects the amount of light entering the objective in darkfield stereoscopic microscopy. This tutorial demonstrates lightpath differences between conventional and toroidal mirrors.


Super-Resolution Microscopy


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Interactive Tutorials

Introduction

Microscopy Basics

Confocal Microscopy

Digital Imaging

DIC Microscopy

Fluorescence Microscopy

Live Cell Imaging

Optical Systems

Polarized Light

Phase Contrast

Stereomicroscopy

Super-Resolution Microscopy