Dark-field ultramicroscope
Ultramicroscopio de campo oscuro
- Date
- 1902-1903 · confidence high
- Place
- Jena, Thuringia, Germany
- Credited to
- Henry Siedentopf and Richard Zsigmondy (Zeiss)
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A microscope that illuminates the sample from the side against a dark background and shows as points of light particles smaller than the resolving power, such as colloidal gold. It was used to study colloids and Brownian motion.
Zsigmondy won the 1925 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for colloid studies with this instrument.
What it led to
- verification of Brownian motion theory (Perrin, Svedberg)
- colloid chemistry
- dark-field microscopy in medicine (spirochaetes)