Parole chiave: specimen characteristics, geometrical profile, topography, composition, morphology
Definizione:Determining specimen characteristics, including geometrical profile, topography, composition and morphology of the specimen is important when choosing a suitable illumination strategy for optimum imaging; opacity of the specimen, being generally the most important characteristic.
Also known as reflected illumination, episcopic illumination is predominantly used for lighting opaque specimens from above. A variety of orientations of light are used, ranging from on-axis to oblique to best expose the features and characteristics of interest.
There are many different microscope illumination pathways for lighting a specimen episcopically, including lighting through a tungsten illuminator, a ring light mounted on a microscope objective body and a coaxial illuminator.
However, it should also be noted that many objects reveal their characteristics best through a combination of both transmitted and reflected light.