What is resolution and what does it have to do with the numerical aperture number of an objective lens…?
This information is a summary of an article on Numerical Aperture and Resolution that appears on the UCLA Brain Research Institute Microscopy Core Facilities website. Resolution can be defined as the ability of a microscope to allow one to distinguish between small objects. In other words, how crisp and sharp is an image at any given magnification? The numerical aperture number is directly related to the cone of light from the specimen at its vertex which is brought into the lens. When light hits an object, it diffracts. A single beam of light will be split into several different diffraction orders bent at increasing angles from the original impinging beam. The higher the numerical aperture of a lens, the better the resolution of a specimen will be which can be obtained with that lens. Using a higher numerical aperture results in more orders of diffraction from the object being brought into the lens. More light is brought into a higher numerical aperture, producing brighter images.
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