Polarizing Microscope

Light has both a particle and a wave property. A beam of light can be polarized by lining up its vibrations with each other. Thus, the polarizing microscope polarizes light in order to magnify images. This microscope also determines properties of materials that transmit light, whether they are crystalline or non crystalline.

The optical features of transparent material were recognized when William Henry Fox Talbot added two Nicol prisms (prisms that can polarize light) to a microscope. However, it was Henry Clifton Sorby (1826-1908) who used polarized light microscopy to study thinned sections of transparent rocks. He showed that through their optical properties, these thinned sections of minerals could be analyzed.

The polarizing microscope can be divided into three major component sets:

1. Stand holds the body tube and the stage
2. Optical system consists of the source of light, usually a lamp
3. System for production of plane polarized light these devices consist of a polarizer and an analyser and these determine the resolving power or resolution

The quality of magnification depends on the objective lens and the smaller the diameter of the outermost lens, the higher the magnification.