What is a phase contrast microscope?
This is another way to view live blood for nutritional work. With this lighting technique, the light coming through the specimen is altered so that a portion of the light is shifted slightly out of phase with the original. The light now strikes the specimen and lights up invisible particles while also giving shades of gray. This is an excellent way of viewing blood for nutritional screening.
A： It was invented in 1930’s by Dutch Zernike. When I observe a transparent specimen with a light field microscope, I dye it and follow a color. However, when I observe a living specimen by this method, there is inconvenience because I die when I dye it. It is a phase contrast microscope that was born to solve this problem.
A phase contrast microscope is a scientific instrument specifically designed to increase the contrast of live specimens under observation. The microscope depends on the different refractive qualities of objects to distinguish between transparent and colorless structures. Other microscopy methods depend on staining a specimen to highlight or define different cellular components. The process of staining usually kills the specimen, making the study of active cellular processes impossible. The phase contrast microscope eliminates the need to kill a specimen by harnessing the nature of light waves. A light wave contains peaks and valleys at regular intervals. If the peaks and valleys of different waves line up, they are said to be in phase. When they are misaligned the waves are out of phase. The phase contrast microscope uses two light sources: a lamp under the specimen, and a light that is either diffracted or reflected off the specimen. Light is passed through a transparent object, while
