Conclusion
In this course sequence, we have detailed the basic principles and keys specificities of the architecture of the optical instrument "microscope" and its illumination. The three following case studies show practical and illustrated examples, based on real and typical situations and equipment, in order to clarify and make more practical the basic knowledge and descriptions that were previously introduced.
Books [ [1]], [ [2]] and [ [3]] are a great source of supplementary information in general optics. Books [ [4]], [ [5]] or [ [6]] provide very useful supplementary information in the microscopy area; the paper [ [7]] is a great introduction to confocal microscopy, that will not be treated in this module. The websites http://www.molecularexpressions.com/, http://www.microscopyu.com/ or http://www.olympusmicro.com/ [8] also present some elements of microscopy in a very imaged and educational mode.
The following unit (#2) of this optical microscopy module largely uses the elements presented in this unit to address complementary techniques such as phase contrast and differential interference contrast. These such techniques are very important for example in biology where they allow observing living biological systems in great details without perturbing them by adding toxic dyes. In other technical areas, they also allow highlighting raised patterns of opaque objects, that would be totally invisible to classical microscopes...