Polarizing microscopy specimen

In summary, polarizing microscopy provides a vast amount of information about the composition and three-dimensional structure of a variety of samples. The technique can reveal information about thermal history and the stresses and strains to which a specimen was subjected during formation. Polarizing microscopy is a relatively inexpensive and well accessible investigative and quality control tool. 

To detect experimentally produced shock effects in small recovered specimens, techniques with high spatial resolution are required. We used a combination of optical (polarizing microscopy) and electron-optical (scanning and transmission electron microscopy) techniques, enabling characterization from the scale of the recovered bulk sample down to the atomic level. Because recent advancement in... 

Polarizing light microscopy employs crossed polarizers to view the sample. With isotropic specimens, the field of view is dark, while anisotropic, birefringent samples or areas of a sample will appear bright. Polarizing microscopy is employed to view spherulitic structure [66-68] and deformation morphologies (crazes, shear banding) [69] in polymer blends. Samples for... 

Very clear evidence for smectic textures in dispersions of the bacterial viruses Pf 1 and fd was obtained by Booy and Fowlei by freeze-fracture electron microscopy. The liquid-crystalline textures revealed by this technique correlate well with polarizing microscopy of magnetically oriented specimens. 

Microscopy (qv) plays a key role in examining trace evidence owing to the small size of the evidence and a desire to use nondestmctive testing (qv) techniques whenever possible. Polarizing light microscopy (43,44) is a method of choice for crystalline materials. Microscopy and microchemical analysis techniques (45,46) work well on small samples, are relatively nondestmctive, and are fast. Evidence such as sod, minerals, synthetic fibers, explosive debris, foodstuff, cosmetics (qv), and the like, lend themselves to this technique as do comparison microscopy, refractive index, and density comparisons with known specimens. Other microscopic procedures involving infrared, visible, and ultraviolet spectroscopy (qv) also are used to examine many types of trace evidence. 

With respect to the higher temperature transition at 445 °C, there are two conflicting views of this transition, namely that the phase above 445 °C is a smectic C and the other that it is nematic. Based on high temperature X-ray diffraction studies, Yoon et al. have concluded that it is a smectic C (see Fig. 4) [28], Thus, in Fig. 4, the disappearance of the 211 peak indicates that the nematic E structure is converting to a nematic C. In our work, using polarizing optical microscopy, we have observed a nematic texture for high molar mass specimens heated rapidly to 480 °C, sheared, and then quenched. In the case of a... 

The structure (e.g., number, size, distribution) of fat crystals is difficult to analyze by common microscopy techniques (i.e., electron, polarized light), due to their dense and interconnected microstructure. Images of the internal structures of lipid-based foods can only be obtained by special manipulation of the sample. However, formation of thin sections (polarized light microscopy) or fractured planes (electron microscopy) still typically does not provide adequate resolution of the crystalline phase. Confocal laserscanning microscopy (CLSM), which is based on the detection of fluorescence produced by a dye system when a sample is illuminated with a krypton/argon mixed-gas laser, overcomes these problems. Bulk specimens can be used with CLSM to obtain high-resolution images of lipid crystalline structure in intricate detail. 

The demonstration of amyloid protein in a tissue biopsy specimen by staining with Congo red and examination by polarized light microscopy is required for a definitive diagnosis. 

With this background, we have proposed and developed a new purely electrical method for imaging the state of the polarizations in ferroelectric and piezoelectric material and their crystal anisotropy. It involves the measurement of point-to-point variations of the nonlinear dielectric constant of a specimen and is termed scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy (sndm) [1-7]. This is the first successful purely electrical method for observing the ferroelectric polarization distribution without the influence of the screening effect from free charges. To date, the resolution of this microscope has been improved down to the subnanometer order. 

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