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Acoustic Microscopes

Acoustic Microscopes

In addition to the light and electron microscope, recently microscopes using short sound waves (acoustic) have also been developed. It was first in 1949 that the Russian physicist who found that sound waves of low frequency with a wavelength close to that of light exist. However, at that time the technology to convert sound signals into light signals did not exist. Subsequently in the sixties, Professor C.

Quate of USA and E. Ash of England developed this principle further and used it in microscopy. The principle on which the acoustic microscope works is based on the fact that the speed of sound in an environment is directly related to physical properties of that environment such as the density and elasticity. The acoustic lens is a spherical surface ground into a material such as sapphire through which sound travels quickly. The surface of the lens is kept immersed in a, fluid of relatively tow density (generally water).

Sound waves derived from optically opaque objects are then converted in to light signals, This type of microscope has a future in microbiology because unlike in light and electron microscopy, the biological specimen can be examined without any alteration. This system, therefore, is non-destructive. Today acoustic microscopes are generally used in scanning because there is no film that can record acoustic waves with a sufficiently high resolution

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