Mar 5 2011
Researchers at the University of Manchester, in collaboration with the Singapore team, have developed an optical microscope that can analyze substances measuring 50 nm, which is 20 fold smaller than the current limit of existing optical microscopes.
The researchers claimed that they could observe the activities of live viruses and other micro details within the cells using the microscope. The diameter of a cold virus is 20 nm.
The University of Manchester’s professor, Lin Li, who led the project, stated that the optical microscope has set a world record by imaging extremely small objects. It is an initial effort and the device could be improved to see even smaller objects.
Electron microscopes utilize a concentrated beam of electrons and can view small substances. However, they require ultra thin specimen sections and make it complex to image small biological structures. Electron microscope is developed to analyze surface details and not the interior of the cell.
The optical microscope uses ‘superlenses’ in the form of small ‘microspheres’ that extend the technical limitations of optical microscopes. Li informed that the optical fluoresce microscopes could view the inside details of the cells indirectly by dying them. However, these dyes cannot enter into the virus.