This course provides a deep understanding of the wide variety of advanced techniques of light microscopy used universally to investigate living and fixed systems at the cellular and molecular level. This course consists of an examination of optical-based microscopy techniques based on light's behavior as a ray, as a wave, and as a particle. Microscopy techniques below the diffraction limit of light and ethics in image analysis are also studied. This course uses both theoretical and hands-on methods to develop a deeper understanding of the fundamental properties underlying the use of microscopy as a tool for the study of the amazingly diverse world too small for humans to see with the unaided eye. The course culminates in the use of laser scanning techniques to probe the microscopic world below the Abbe diffraction limit of light which was once believed to be impossible with light microscopy. Emphasis is placed on advanced microscopy concepts, equipment, problems and traditional microscopy challenges particularly as these areas apply to challenges facing military and civilian researchers in the world today.
