Metallurgical Microscopes

By: Kathy Brasch

A metallurgical microscope is an optical microscope which differs from other microscopes in the method of specimen illumination. Since metals are opaque substances they must be illuminated by frontal/reflected lighting, therefore on metallurgical microscopes the light source is located within the microscope tube. This is achieved by a plain glass reflector installed in the tube. The image quality and its resolving power are mainly determined by the quality of the objective. The common magnification of a metallurgical microscope is in the range of 50x – 1000x.

Metallographic microscopes are used for a variety of applications such as semiconductor silicon wafer manufacturing, inspection and quality control, crystallography, and analysis of sand castings in iron metal foundries. They can also be used for metallic grain microstructure analysis and identification, measurement of thin films, microscopic analysis of opaque surfaces, study of prehistoric stone age tools and artifacts, historical preservation, the study of metallurgy, and metal patina analysis.

There are two designs of metallurgical microscope: upright and inverted. The upright microscope is used for examining smaller specimens mounted on slide material. The inverted model is used for applications that range from the examination of thick and large metal or raw material samples to big or heavy samples.

There are different illumination accessory options available on most metallurgical microscopes which include dark field, polarized light, interference contrast. Dark field illumination is used for producing images with dark background and bright non-flat structure features. Polarized light is used for viewing metals with non-cubic crystalline structure (magnesium, alpha-titanium|, zinc and others) responding to cross-polarized light. Polarized light is created by a polarizer which is located before the illuminator and analyzer, and placed before the eyepiece. Interference contrast system (DIC), enables the user to observe features not visible in brightfield. It also can create a three dimensional view in some samples.

Quality metallurgical microscopes are offered by VanGuard in their 1240MM series. The VanGuard 1241MM is a trinocular industrial microscope featuring reflected illumination as well as long working distance objectives. It is perfect for the inspection of integrated circuits, wafers, electronic components, metals, polymers, paint, textiles, and essentially any opaque sample. Since the 1241MM has a trinocular design you can add a digital or video camera system to help document your findings. The VanGuard 1242MM offers similar features with the addition of a base illuminator for transmitted light.

Article Source: https://www.collectibles-articles.com

National Microscope Exchange has been in business since 1991, selling and servicing refractometers, microscopes and inverted microscope. The service staff has 30 years of experience with microscopes, and is the authorized United States service facility for Atago brand refractometers, metallurgical microscope.

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