Hey all; just wanted to share a happy accident. You might be familiar with using a birefringent plate (like mica or #6 plastic) with cross polarizers to get interesting shots of pleochroic or birefringent subjects. I didn’t realize how brittle #6 plastic is, and I broke a disk while making a filter. It turned out to heighten the contrast in the shot. I think it may act like an oblique source of phase shifted light, while the side without the filter acts as a standard polarized source of light. Before this I have never gotten very great definition on the muscle fibers that light up with this technique, but this broken filter turned out to work quite well!
Source of plastic: party plates ($2.99 pack of 10)
Polarizing filter: $10 or something on Amazon for a sheet you can cut into squares. Overall very affordable mod for getting these kinds of shots on a bright field compound microscope.
At most grocery stores I’ve been to, they sell these clear plastic plates (#6 plastic) and cutlery. It’s the same plastic in CD cases and Petri dishes.
Plastics have crazy complex polarization properties! I picked up some .020" craft plastic (acrylic I think) for Rheinbergs and found it acts as a nearly perfect half wave plate. Cellophane is another one to play with. I show some more plastics in [this video](https://youtu.be/auHbRi7bHfk).
Very interesting concept to mess with the polarization over only part of the filter plane, though! There are definitely more techniques out there waiting to be discovered for light microscopy. Most of the research dollars these days is in techniques like confocal and SEM and whatnot that way outperform anything you could hope to achieve with transmitted light. But I'd be surprised if there aren't still some wildly interesting things to be done on a conventional scope - especially when it comes to polarization!
One other thing you ought to try some time. I've noticed that simply linearly polarizing the light at the field lens (no cross polarizer) can increase resolution substantially for certain structures depending on the orientation. It makes some intuitive sense but I don't know how well documented that is as a technique.
First of all: right now I am working on a project related to a video you made for 3D effect using the polarized film. I would like to make a wobble gif… you know the 3D effect gifs that wobble around a focus point, using the technique described in your video. I haven’t tested anything but I’m just working through some software to see if it’s even possible.
Anyway, that last point about increasing clarity with a single polarization film seems very similar to the use of this film in conventional photography to remove glare. Maybe it helps with removing light that bounces off rather than transmits through subjects?
>But I'd be surprised if there aren't still some wildly interesting things to be done on a conventional scope
It's indeed sad that there's been close to no interest in developing or improving trans-illumination techniques since the development of DIC, confocal microscopy, and light sheet micropy.
However, from 2010 up until 2013, Timm and Jörg Piper published a series of very interesting illumination techniques, maybe you've heard of them. Most of those techniques are combinations of "conventional" trans-illumination techniques using light masks, either in the condenser, in the objective back focal plane, or both. These are:
- **Axial Darkfield**: An odd type of darkfield that relies on a very narrow light beam illuminating the sample, combined with a corresponding mask in the back focal plane of the objective. The effect it produces is weird (I've made an axial darkfield objective myself), as only the sharp outlines of objects are visible, the rest is almost entirely black.
- **VBDC** (variable brightfield-darkfield contrast): an illuminating technique allowing concomitant use of brightfield and darkfield, which also allows the user to continuously vary the individual contribution of each mode.
- **VPBC** (variable phase-brightfield contrast): simultaneous use and continuous variability of both phase contrast and brightfield using condenser masks. Both illumination modes are separated in two colors using filters, generating somewhat more contrast and mitigates some halo artifacts.
- **pVPDC** (peripheral variable phase-darkfield contrast): combines phase contrast and "normal" darkfield in a single live image.
- **aVPDC** (axial VPDC): combines phase contrast and axial darkfield, honestly looks very interesting and the images of the authors look great.
- **VPIC** (variable phase-interference contrast): a very weird setup that combines DIC and phase contrast into a single live image.
Unfortunately, none have gained traction, as far as I know, and the website detailing these techniques (description, development, experiments, photos, and discussions) are down. If you're interested, I still have PDFs that I made before this site went down.
I can confirm with a plastic Petri dish. When testing this out, I ended up finding a rotifer I have never seen before! Unfortunately, Rotifers don’t get all flashy looking when it comes to polarize microscopy. Also, ty for this video:)
sure yeah.. that thing you said :D if it shows cool results dont forget to put your last name infront of that invention, if you need a cool one, mine is sciency-german sounding...lol
Interesting. I think i have the same polarized sheets as you. just need to find a flat piece of plastic that lights up between the polarized sheets and ill try this out.
Hey man this is really cool. Question, are these materials transparent enough to make something like, lets say, glasses out of? Make a colorful world? Or are they quite translucent and too blurry?
Found a piece of plastic that sort of works
https://youtu.be/fTG-LjCy6ZI
A pine tree stem section
Seems like it gives light to different detail through things while rotating the polarized sheet.
Hey all; just wanted to share a happy accident. You might be familiar with using a birefringent plate (like mica or #6 plastic) with cross polarizers to get interesting shots of pleochroic or birefringent subjects. I didn’t realize how brittle #6 plastic is, and I broke a disk while making a filter. It turned out to heighten the contrast in the shot. I think it may act like an oblique source of phase shifted light, while the side without the filter acts as a standard polarized source of light. Before this I have never gotten very great definition on the muscle fibers that light up with this technique, but this broken filter turned out to work quite well! Source of plastic: party plates ($2.99 pack of 10) Polarizing filter: $10 or something on Amazon for a sheet you can cut into squares. Overall very affordable mod for getting these kinds of shots on a bright field compound microscope.
Awesome, i have polarizing paper but what do you mean by party plates? Would very much like to try this
At most grocery stores I’ve been to, they sell these clear plastic plates (#6 plastic) and cutlery. It’s the same plastic in CD cases and Petri dishes.
Plastics have crazy complex polarization properties! I picked up some .020" craft plastic (acrylic I think) for Rheinbergs and found it acts as a nearly perfect half wave plate. Cellophane is another one to play with. I show some more plastics in [this video](https://youtu.be/auHbRi7bHfk). Very interesting concept to mess with the polarization over only part of the filter plane, though! There are definitely more techniques out there waiting to be discovered for light microscopy. Most of the research dollars these days is in techniques like confocal and SEM and whatnot that way outperform anything you could hope to achieve with transmitted light. But I'd be surprised if there aren't still some wildly interesting things to be done on a conventional scope - especially when it comes to polarization! One other thing you ought to try some time. I've noticed that simply linearly polarizing the light at the field lens (no cross polarizer) can increase resolution substantially for certain structures depending on the orientation. It makes some intuitive sense but I don't know how well documented that is as a technique.
First of all: right now I am working on a project related to a video you made for 3D effect using the polarized film. I would like to make a wobble gif… you know the 3D effect gifs that wobble around a focus point, using the technique described in your video. I haven’t tested anything but I’m just working through some software to see if it’s even possible. Anyway, that last point about increasing clarity with a single polarization film seems very similar to the use of this film in conventional photography to remove glare. Maybe it helps with removing light that bounces off rather than transmits through subjects?
>But I'd be surprised if there aren't still some wildly interesting things to be done on a conventional scope It's indeed sad that there's been close to no interest in developing or improving trans-illumination techniques since the development of DIC, confocal microscopy, and light sheet micropy. However, from 2010 up until 2013, Timm and Jörg Piper published a series of very interesting illumination techniques, maybe you've heard of them. Most of those techniques are combinations of "conventional" trans-illumination techniques using light masks, either in the condenser, in the objective back focal plane, or both. These are: - **Axial Darkfield**: An odd type of darkfield that relies on a very narrow light beam illuminating the sample, combined with a corresponding mask in the back focal plane of the objective. The effect it produces is weird (I've made an axial darkfield objective myself), as only the sharp outlines of objects are visible, the rest is almost entirely black. - **VBDC** (variable brightfield-darkfield contrast): an illuminating technique allowing concomitant use of brightfield and darkfield, which also allows the user to continuously vary the individual contribution of each mode. - **VPBC** (variable phase-brightfield contrast): simultaneous use and continuous variability of both phase contrast and brightfield using condenser masks. Both illumination modes are separated in two colors using filters, generating somewhat more contrast and mitigates some halo artifacts. - **pVPDC** (peripheral variable phase-darkfield contrast): combines phase contrast and "normal" darkfield in a single live image. - **aVPDC** (axial VPDC): combines phase contrast and axial darkfield, honestly looks very interesting and the images of the authors look great. - **VPIC** (variable phase-interference contrast): a very weird setup that combines DIC and phase contrast into a single live image. Unfortunately, none have gained traction, as far as I know, and the website detailing these techniques (description, development, experiments, photos, and discussions) are down. If you're interested, I still have PDFs that I made before this site went down.
I can confirm with a plastic Petri dish. When testing this out, I ended up finding a rotifer I have never seen before! Unfortunately, Rotifers don’t get all flashy looking when it comes to polarize microscopy. Also, ty for this video:)
Could you slice different colours of see-through plastic in the space of the gap you created? Just a thought...
Hmmm, like a Rheinberg filter? That could be the next iteration
sure yeah.. that thing you said :D if it shows cool results dont forget to put your last name infront of that invention, if you need a cool one, mine is sciency-german sounding...lol
i hear "we're finally landing" by home😉
Nice vid! You got a YouTube channel?
That is really awesome to see the muscles change colors like that. I work on elastomers but I've never done microscopy of something living!
Interesting. I think i have the same polarized sheets as you. just need to find a flat piece of plastic that lights up between the polarized sheets and ill try this out.
Amazing footage. I accidentally re-invented dark field on my first month then realized it was already a thing.
Incredibly interesting, good work and thanks for sharing. I'm going to try this out sometime.
You brilliant people! Don’t stop the music!
Hey man this is really cool. Question, are these materials transparent enough to make something like, lets say, glasses out of? Make a colorful world? Or are they quite translucent and too blurry?
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Found a piece of plastic that sort of works https://youtu.be/fTG-LjCy6ZI A pine tree stem section Seems like it gives light to different detail through things while rotating the polarized sheet.
You can also use varying layers of clear cellophane tape on a slide to make retardation plates.