Missouri State Highway Patrol

Microscopy

A microscope mainly consists of an objective lens, ocular lens, lens tube, stage, and reflector. An object placed on the stage is magnified through the objective lens. When the target is focused, a magnified image can be observed through the ocular lens.

The lab uses several types of microscopes including low magnification stereozoom microscopes, higher powered microscopes that use polarized light to highlight certain optical characteristics of materials and comparison microscopes, which are two microscopes paired together to give a split view from each microscope. If higher magnification is necessary, the scanning electron microscope [hyperlink] may be used to image the sample.