An Introduction to Microscopy

Abstract

Microscopy involves the study of objects that are too small to be examined by the unaided eye. In the SI (metric) system of units, the sizes of these objects are expressed in terms of sub-multiples of the meter, such as the micrometer (1 µm=10⁻⁶ m, also called a micron) and also the nanometer (1 nm=10⁻⁹ m). Older books use the Angstrom unit (1 Å =10⁻¹⁰ m), not an official SI unit but convenient for specifying the distance between atoms in a solid, which is generally in the range 2–3 Å.