Illumination techniques and its applications

Bright Field Ring Light

Characteristics:
Ring Lights are attached on the objective. If the ring light is fully illuminated (Full Circle Mode), the sample is illuminated homogeneously and free from shadows from all sides. In addition, some of our LED ring lights have Segment Modes which allows for only parts of the ring light to be illuminated and rotated around the sample. This allows surface topography to be highlighted and can avoid reflections on cylindrical samples.

Typical application areas:
Full circle mode:
Applications where homogeneous illumination is most important, e.g. for stiching of images
Segment mode:
Flat surfaces like leather or shiny samples like a light bulb where reflections shall be avoided

Products:
Without segment mode:
KL Ring Lights | EasyLED Ring Light
With segment mode:
EasyLED Ring Light Plus | VisiLED Ring Lights

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Samples illuminated with bright field and UV light

UV Ring Light

Characteristics:
UV light is generally used in stereomicroscopy to contrast the sample with fluorescent light. It is below the visible wavelengths, but excites many materials to emit visible fluorescence.

Typical Application areas:
Examination of materials with fluorescent markers or autofluorescence. Typical application fields include forensic examination of documents, analysis of cracks, paints, varnishes etc.

Products:
VisiLED UV Ring Light

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Characteristics:
Spot Lights, Goosenecks and Flexible Light Guides offer the highest versatility because the direction as well as the angle of the light can be varied. On the other hand, the illumination is not reproducable and not as homogeneous as a ring light. They can provide strong shadow effects on flat specimen to highlight uneven surfaces.

What are the differences between those 3 lighting options?
LED Spot Lights and fiber optic Goosenecks are flex and stay light guide which will remain in place after positioning. In contrast, Flexible Light Guides do not stay in place and need to be held. Goosenecks and Flexible Light Guides are compatible with our cold light sources.

Typical application areas:
Flat surfaces like a coin

Products:
KL Goosenecks | KL Flexible Light Guides | Easy LED Spot Lights

Characteristics:
Line Lights are used to make fine surface structures on flat samples more visible. The Line Light illuminates the sample from the side at a very flat angle. The contrast on the sample is enhanced by the grazing light and the resulting shadow effects, so that the surface structure is more visible. This results in a plastic 3D effect.

Typical application areas:
Structured surfaces of flat materials such as paper, structured laminate films or textiles.

Products:
KL Line Lights

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Characteristics:
Back Lights are available as bright field and dark field variants. They are used to illuminate samples from the bottom.
Bright Field Back Lights are typically used for transparent stained specimens, or to detect the exact 2D dimensions of opaque samples.
Dark Field Back Lights are typically used for unstained specimens.

Typical application areas:
All kinds of transparent specimens like e.g. thin plastic, insects, oocytes, nematodes or zebra fish larvaes. Optical 2D measurements of the outlines of opaque samples.

Products:
EasyLED Back Lights | VisiLED Back Lights | KL Transmitted Light Stage

Characteristics:
Optical accessories can modify incident as well as transmitted lighting options. Common accessories are:

Polarization filter:
Linear polarized light by an polarizing and analyzing filter within the beam path can be very efficiently used in stereo microscopy to eliminate surface reflections in the reflected light or to contrast anisotropic materials.

Diffusor:
The diffusor scatters the light which results in a softening effect that reduces reflections.

Color filter:
With color filters, different fractions of a colored sample can be hidden or pronounced, especially with a black and white camera. Complementary colors will be darkened by absorption, similar colors can be hidden due to reflection of the excitation light. Thus, by a clever selection of colored light, the contrast between the different color fractions of the test object can be optimized.

Typical application areas:
Polarization:
Metallic or shiny samples like a light bulb

Diffusor:
Metallic and shiny samples like a key

Color filter:
Control of printing quality in multicolour printings

Products:
KL | EasyLED | VisiLED

Illumination techniques and its applications

Options

Incident Light:

Transmitted Light:

Optical Accessories:

Characteristics

Ring Lights

Bright Field Ring Light

UV Ring Light

Spot Lights / Goosenecks / Flexible Light Guides

Line Lights

Back Lights

Accessories

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