The structural components of a microscope are used to hold and support the instrument and its parts. The optical components are used to magnify and view the images of the specimens.
The various types of microscopes can be generically categorised into:
- Optical light microscope
- Electron microscope
The three structural parts of a microscope are as follows:
- Head: It is also referred to as the body. The head of the microscope contains optical components.
- Base: It serves as a support for microscopes. Microscope illuminators are also carried by it.
- Arm: It joins the base to the head and the eyepiece tube to the base. It supports the microscope’s head and is also used for carrying the instrument.
The optical components of the microscope are used to observe, enlarge, and generate an image from a sample put on a slide. These parts consist of the following:
- Eyepiece: It is also referred to as the ocular. This area is used to view objects through the microscope. It is located at the tip of the microscope.
- Eyepiece holder: It is often known as the eyepiece tube. The eyepiece is mounted directly over the objective lens. Some microscopes, like binoculars, have flexible eyepiece tubes that may be turned for optimal visualisation and to account for differences in distance.
- Objective lenses: These are the primary lenses employed for specimen visualisation. They have a 40x–100x magnification range. One microscope has one to four objective lenses, some of which are forward-facing and others rear-facing. The magnification power of each lens varies.
- Nose piece: It is referred to as the revolving turret. It retains objective lenses. Because it is mobile, the objective lenses can rotate according to the lens’s magnification.
- Adjustment knobs: They are utilised to focus the microscope. There are two different kinds of adjustment knobs: coarse adjustment knobs and fine adjustment knobs.
- Stage: The specimen is displayed here. The specimen slides are kept in place by stage clips. The most popular stage is a mechanical stage, which enables control of the slides by allowing them to be moved mechanically on the stage rather than manually.
- Aperture: A hole in the microscope stage via which transmitted light from the source enters the stage.
- Microscopic illuminator: It is located at the microscope’s base, providing its light source. It collects light from an outside source using a low voltage of only 100 volts. It is utilised in place of a mirror.
- Condenser: The lenses used to gather and concentrate light from the illuminator into the sample. They are located near the microscope’s diaphragm under the stage. They are essential for producing clear, bright images at high magnifications of 400X and more. Image clarity increases with increasing condenser magnification.
- Diaphragm: It is also called the iris. It can be found under the microscope’s stage, and its primary function is to regulate how much light gets to the specimen. The light intensity and size of the beam that reaches the specimen are controlled by this adjustable device.
- Condenser focus knob: It controls the focus of light on the specimen by raising or lowering the condenser.
- Abbe condenser: It is a condenser mainly created for high-quality microscopes. It allows for extremely high magnification of over 400X.
- The rack stop: It controls how far the stages should move to keep the objective lens from going closer to the specimen slide, which could harm the specimen. It guards against the specimen slide rising too high and colliding with the objective lens.
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