Abbe's theory of image formation in the microscope
Teoría de Abbe de la formación de imagen en el microscopio
- Date
- 1873 · confidence high
- Place
- Jena, Thuringia, Germany
- Credited to
- Ernst Abbe
- Field
- Communication
What was discovered
Abbe shows that a microscope's resolution is limited by diffraction and the numerical aperture, and formulates the sine condition. It turned objective design into a calculation and set the limit of about 200 nm.
Abbe also published the illumination condenser and worked with Zeiss and Otto Schott on new optical glasses.
What it led to
- Zeiss apochromatic objectives (1886)
- the diffraction limit and the quest for super-resolution
- high-quality microscopy in medicine and biology