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Compound Optical Microscope
Zacharias Janssen invented a compund microscope in 1595. The creation of the compound microscope by the Janssens helped to advance the field of microbiology light years ahead of where it had been only just a few years earlier. -
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was best known for his work on the improvement of the microscope and for his contributions towards the establishment of microbiology. -
Simple Optical Microscope (Antonie van Leeuwenhoek)
One of the earliest uses of a simple microscope for examining the minute details of living things was by a Dutch cloth merchant, Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). His microscope was very simple, but his skill at grinding lenses made it superior to many of the compound microscopes used previously. He was able to study the structure of tissue, and was one of the first scientists to discover protozoa in water. He also identified minute blood carrying capillaries. It only had one lens. -
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke is best known for his law of elasticity and for coining the term "cell" to describe the basic unit of life. -
Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)
The first transmission electron microscope was built by Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska in 1931, with this group developing the first TEM with resolving power greater than that of light in 1933 and the first commercial TEM in 1939. -
Scanning Electron Micoscope
Unlike the TEM, where electrons of the high voltage beam carry the image of the specimen, the electron beam of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)[9] does not at any time carry a complete image of the specimen. The SEM produces images by probing the specimen with a focused electron beam that is scanned across a rectangular area of the specimen (raster scanning).
