Introduction to Optical Microscopy

S. U. Egelhaaf (Uni Düsseldorf, Physics of Soft Matter)
R. Merkel (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Mechanobiology)

Optical microscopy is a key method for cell biology, biophysics and soft matter physics. The advent of reliable high-sensitivity electronic image recording combined with digital image processing has turned light microscopy into a highly quantitative method. Moreover, modern light microscopy performs reliably very close to the physical limits and offers a surprising variety of different contrast generation mechanisms. However, to exploit the considerable potential of modern light microscopy, the user has to understand the underlying optical principles. This lecture series aims at teaching this with a minimum of formalism. The lecture series comprises four topics: ray optical principles, wave optical principles, optical contrast techniques, confocal microscopy, and modern microscopy techniques.

We hope to be able to offer a lab course that will accompany the lectures, details will be discussed in the last lecture.

Wednesday, April 22, 1:00-2:30
Wednesday, May 13, 1:00-2:30
Wednesday, May 27, 1:00-2:30
Wednesday, June 24, 1:00-2:30
Wednesday, July 15, 1:00-2:30