Optical Microscopy: Part 1 Report Outline

1. Apparatus:
   • Draw a block diagram of your microscope, including all optical elements and relevant distances. It is unnecessary to document the details of the mechanical construction.
   • Describe your design calculations and considerations.
   • Why not put in a nice snapshot of your microscope? (optional, but certainly a cherished memory in the making)
2. Magnification
   1. Procedure
      • Document the samples you used and how you captured images (camera settings, software used, etc…)
   2. Data
      • Include example images.
   • Provide examples of images of beads captures with each of the three objectives (10×, 40× and 100×).
3. Analysis:
   • Clarify the approach and steps you chose to go from the raw images to the inferred magnification and field of view quantitative results for your brightfield microscope. Show an example calculation.
   • Establish how the uncertainty of your measurements will be reported ("± standard deviation", "± standard error", "± percentage of average") and what equation you followed to quantify this uncertainty.
4. Results:
   • Describe the transmitted bright-field performance of your microscope by calculating its magnification and field of view, with each of the three objectives (10×, 40× and 100×):
     • Include a table with the following values for the 10×, 40× and 100× objectives:
       • (Don't forget to indicate units!)
       • Theoretical resolution
       • Actual magnification by multiple measures (Air Force Target, Ronchi Ruling)
       • Actual field of view in the sample plane (FOV)
     • Quantify the uncertainty on your measurements (with an appropriate number of significant decimal points!).
     • After calibration, measure the size of microspheres (and justify the size of the microspheres chosen for each of the objectives).
5. Discussion:
   • Explain why some samples could not be well imaged with some objective(s), and whether the results differed from your expectations.
   • Identify the limits of accuracy of your microscope and characterize its source of error: Possibly in table format,
     • indicate which sources of error contribute to the compounded uncertainty reported,
     • whether each source of noise is systematic or random, user- vs. instrument-based,
     • how each source of noise impacts numerically your results,
     • how predominant or minor each source of noise is toward reaching your conclusions,
     • which sources of error can be compensated / improved on, and which are intrinsic to your microscope design.
   • Explain how multiple measurements improve (or not!) the accuracy of your calculations.
6. Conclusion / Further Work:
   • Suggest possible design choices that would improve microscope performance.