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optical microscope

An optical microscope is an optical instrument used to create a real image of a small specimen. The objective lens is used to magnify the image of the object, which can be further magnified by an eyepiece or other optical component. Microscopes can be broadly sorted into the following three categories based on their structure: inverted microscopes, upright microscopes, and stereomicroscopes.
"Bright-field" is a common microscope illumination technique using light transmitted through or reflected by a specimen to form an image. In addition, depending on the type of specimen to be observed and the purpose of the research, there are other illumination/observation methods for introducing contrast in the image, including phase contrast, differential interference (DIC), polarized light, and fluorescence.