Section 3
Other Types of Microscopy
By Boundless
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/10986/square/leptospirosis-darkfield.jpeg)
Dark-field microscopes show a light silhouette of an organism against a dark background.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/2660/square/cheek-cell-phase-contrast.jpeg)
Phase-contrast microscopy visualizes differences in the refractive indexes of different parts of a specimen relative to unaltered light.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/11092/square/dic-light-path.jpg)
Interference microscopy is a variation of phase-contrast microscopy that uses a prism to split a light beam in two.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/485/square/fluorescentcells.jpeg)
Fluorescence microscopy is used to study specimens that are chemically manipulated to emit light.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/11005/square/tetrachimena-beta-tubulin.jpg)
The key to the confocal approach is the use of spatial filtering techniques to eliminate out-of-focus light from biological samples.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/10993/square/electron-microscope.jpeg)
Electron microscopy uses magnetic coils to direct a beam of electrons from a tungsten filament through a specimen and onto a monitor.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/11138/square/nelingmicroscope-schematic.jpg)
Scanned-probe microscopy uses a fine probe rather than a light-beam or electrons to scan the surface of a specimen and produce a 3D image.
![Thumbnail](../../../../../../figures.boundless-cdn.com/11219/square/x-ray-diffraction.jpg)
X-ray diffraction is a method that characterizes the structural composition of matter and using mathematical models.