An Optical Microscopy Apparatus for the Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratory

Optical Microscopy is a part of fundamental discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology; is an important tool is many fields of engineering; and was the subject of Nobel Prizes in 2008 and 2014. An Optical Microscopy Apparatus for undergraduate student use will be presented. This apparatus is very versatile and can be used to conduct a semester-long laboratory course in Optical Microscopy for majors in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. It can be used to perform numerous experiments, including Introduction to Optical Imaging, Aberrations and Illumination, Kohler Illumination, Conjugate Planes, Darkfield Imaging, Abbe Theory of Image Formation, Contrast Methods, Spectra and Filter, and Fluorescence Microscopy.