¶ Microscope Operation
If you want an introduction to be able to use the microscope please ask in the chat in the #microscopy channel. Below is a reminder how everything works, please don't attempt this on your own but go through it with an experienced person when you do it the first time.
This page is intended as a reminder and does NOT replace a personal introduction to the microscope.
DO NOT use the microscope without having received instructions and official permission from an authorized person.
¶ Booting and Laser Startup
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Remove the blue dust cover from the microscope. Make sure you don't touch the lenses with it when removing it.
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Check the boot floppy disk is in the drive and fully inserted.
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Switch on the main switch, which will turn on the microscope hardware, PC rack, and the illumination. Be prepared for noises.
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If all LEDs on the control panel are lit, you need to press reset (green button on the PC rack). You will hear a beep and all LEDs on the control panel should be off.
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You will be able to hear the floppy working, it takes about 2 to 3 minutes to boot. The screen will simply stay white/gray during that time. After boot you will see the following screen.
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Grab the laser power switch key and the "Visible Laser Detector Card" from the microscope accesories box under the table.
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Switch the infrared laser on with the key.
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Remove the dust protector from the laser and check with the card if the laser is on. It will take around 5-10 minutes to start.
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Put the dust cover of the laser back.
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Use the front and left silver knobs to bring the middle of the glass window under the microscope lenses.
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The microscope is now ready for sample placement
¶ Sample Placement and Conventional Mode (= Standard Optical Microscope)
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Take the sample you want to examine. You can use the opened SIM card shown in the picture for testing if you want.
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Make sure the microscope is in conventional "R" (=reflection) mode.
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Using the 'coarse' drive (outer ring) on the focusing/table control on left hand side, move the sample table down. Make sure there is enough space for the lens we are about to use, plus your sample, plus some safety buffer.
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MAKE EXTRA SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH SPACE BEFORE THIS STEP. The lenses will move on their own in this step and can easily break when colliding with something. Press lens followed by one, to change the current objective lens to lens number one.
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Make sure the illumination is set to the following settings: A set to H 'large circle', F all the way in, "<-->" pulled out to right and not in/hidden.
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Place your sample on the glass in the middle of the light spot. Use both of the silver knobs to adjust the table position if desired.
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Move the coarse focus/table drive up until the light spot becomes smaller and has a sharp edge on the sample.
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Remove the silver/black protection cap from the eyepieces on the front of the microscope. Be careful not to take the eyepieces off by accident.
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Take a look at the eyepieces and make sure they are both set to zero if you don't need glasses in everyday life. If you need glasses, set them to zero for now and adjust them for best vision after you have focused the sample in the next step.
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Using the coarse drive, move the sample into focus. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T COLLIDE WITH THE LENS WHEN DOING THIS. When the sample is in focus, you can use the inner, 'fine' drive of the focusing control for fine tuning.
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You can explore the sample now in conventional mode (standard optical microscope) using the silver knobs if you want. If you pull the "<-->" polarizer in to the left you can also view the sample in polarized light.
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If you need glasses you can adjust the eyepieces now. Look through the eyepieces without glasses and turn the eyepieces until the image is sharp again on both eyes.
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If you want you can use the purple plastic ring in the acessories box to help you when taking photos through the eyepieces with your smartphone. Be careful not to take the eyepiece off by accident when removing the ring again.
¶ Laser Microscopy Mode
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Make sure that you have the sample in focus under the smallest lens in conventional mode (see above).
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On the control panel switch the laser to laser 2, and the mode to 'Laser Scan Mode R/FL' (reflection/flourescence)
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Press filter followed by 0 to set the laser attenuation filter to 0.
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Press the 'frame' button to make sure the frame scanning mode is active.
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Pull out both detector attenuation filter plate holders until you can see two notches. Remove the third blocking plate completely and place it on microscope. This allows the reflected laser light to reach the detector.
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If you are lucky, you might already be able to see something.
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Using the 2 big knobs on the control panel you can control brightness and contrast of the microscope in laser scan mode. This is indicated by a change of the values of 'C=XXX' and 'B=XXX' on the screen.
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Use the focus control knob carefully to improve the image while adjusting the brightness and contrast to get the best picture. Make sure there is enough room in front of the lens when doing this.
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If you want, you can also use 'fast scan' for focusing to only scan the middle of the sample with decreased resolution. This will give you a much faster frame rate.
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A third option for focusing is using line mode. Press the 'Line' button on the control panel under 'Laser Scan Mode' and the display will only show you a single line of the image similar to an oscilloscope trace. You will see the brightness signal live in yellow. The vertical axis is the brightness signal and the horizontal axis is the y position along the red line in the frame.
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Try to make the maximum of the signal land between the two top blue lines and the minimum between the bottom two. Use brightness (moves signal up/down, offset) and contrast (stretches signal vertically, gain) to accomnplish this. Afterwards press frame mode to see whole image frames again.
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If the signal is too high even with brightness at zero try to insert the laser attenuation filter again by pressing the filter button followed by 1 to insert the filter.
¶ Higher Magnification
Changing to higher magnification lenses can potentially break them if you are not careful and have a collision with the sample. Please read this section carefully and ask for help if needed.
Please always make sure you have enough room for the next lens. Keep in mind the next lens will always be closer to your sample than the previous one. Also think about edges or wires on your sample. If in doubt, lower the table 2 cm or so, switch the lens, and while carefully watching the distance try to find the focus again. Get help if feeling insecure. We've all been there and it is scary the first few times, so no shame. 
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Make sure there is enough space for the next lens. If there is not, lower the sample table first.
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Select the next larger lens by pressing lens and then plus. The lens turret will rotate to the next lens. You can go back to the previous lens by pressing lens and then minus.
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Use any of the methods described in the previous sections (frame scan, quick scan, line scan) to adjust the focus and brightness/contrast as well as filter for the new lens.
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When microscoping with infrared through the silicon of microchips keep in mind that the silicon-air surface will come in focus first when you raise the sample table. If you are interested in the transistors and not the surface, you have to raise the focusing table a tiny bit more until you can see the transistor structures inside the silicon.
¶ Saving Your Images
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Make sure you have a nice image on the screen. If you want to stop the scanning process during this process, you can press the Live/Store button on the control panel to stop the scanner after the frame.
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Find the floppy box with the image transfer floppy and the USB floppy drive box.
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Remove blue boot floppy disk from the microscope PC and insert the image transfer floppy disk.
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Press the 'menu' button 2 times
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Press 1 to select "disk operations".
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Press 1 to select "store image with parameters" and then press 2 to select floppy (probably already selected).
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Press 3 to select file number. Usually not necessary as floppy holds only one image anyway. Enter number with leading zeroe and confirm with enter.
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Press 4 to execute the store operation and write to the floppy.
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During copy, you will see three stars in the lower left corner of the screen and the LEDs on the control panel will light up. Wait until copying is finished and the stars disappear and the LEDs go off.
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Remove the disk.
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Go to the other (modern) PC in Maschinenraum and connect the floppy USB disk drive and insert the disk. Be careful when inserting, the drive is not the best quality and we already broke one.
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The drive will get autmatically detected, go to files -> floppy disk
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Copy the 2 files from the floppy to the computer: The image is the .pic file and the parameters is the .par file.
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Right click in the folder you copied the files to and select "Open in Terminal". Don't do this on the floppy itself but in your folder with the copies.
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Enter in the terminal
pic2bmp 0.PIC(the number may vary) to convert the image to a bmp format, and save it in the same folder.
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Open the .bmp and adore your results. You did great. 🥳
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Make sure to delete all files from the floppy disk so you or the next person have space for the next image.
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Unmount the USB floppy and wait for it to actually write the last bits of data. Then (carefully) remove the disk from the drive.
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Repeat the transfer for the next image if necessary. You might need to press 'frame' or 'live/store' to restart the frame scanning process.
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When done, remove the drive from USB and the disk from the drive. Put the disk back in the box and the drive in it's box as well.
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Make sure to put the boot disk back in the microscope drive when done.
¶ Finishing Your Session
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Make sure the blue boot floppy disk is back in the drive.
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Put all detector attenuators all the way in.
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Switch off the laser.
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Move the sample table down until you can safely remove your sample and all other things. If you used an xHain sample please put it back.
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Make sure you have space for changing the lenses back. Press the 'lens' button , followed by the 'minus' button to change the lens. Repeat until the empty lens slot is selected.
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Use the front silver knob to return the glass table all the way back, until you feel it gets a bit harder to move. See image for final position.
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Remove the purple photo helper adapter from the eyepiece if you have used it. Be careful not to take the eyepiece off by accident.
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Put the silver/black protection cap back on the eyepieces.
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Put the laser key, the laser detector card, and the smartphone photo helper (if you used it) back in the box and put the box back.
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Turn off the main power switch on the wall outlet.
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Put back the dust cover of the microscope. Make sure not to touch the lenses. It's easier if you start from the top and then to the back. Make sure it goes as low as possible, see images.
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If the microscope looks all nice and tidy like in the following picture, get a cool beverage to celebrate your session. 🥳
