Stanford SNSF
Stanford Nano Shared Facilities
Stanford Nano Shared Facilities

Microscopy: Nikon LV100ND Optical Microscope

Jump To: Overview | Contact Information | Getting Started and Training Information | Resources

Overview

There are two Nikon LV100ND microscopes in the Flexible Cleanroom and two LV100ND microscopes in the Nanopatterning Cleanroom. The four microscopes are all very similar, with minor differences.

 FCR Microscope BenchFCR Yellow LightNPC White LightNPC Yellow Light
DIC FeatureYesNoNoYes
UV-Cut FilterNoYesNoYes
CameraDS-Ri2 (18 Megapixel)DS-Fi3 (5.9 Megapixel)Digital Sight 10 (23.9 Megapixel)DS-Ri2 (18 Megapixel)

The Nikon LV100ND Optical Microscope features:

  • Both top and bottom lighting using LED white light with adjustable intensity.
  • 5X, 10X, 20X, 50X, and 100X Plan Fluor high numerical aperture lenses.
  • 10X Ultra Wide Field
  • Brightfield and darkfield for all five lenses.  Brightfield directs the light straight down the center of view, while darkfield lights only from an oblique angle to highlight non-flat surfaces.
  • Selectable Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast (for top down lighting only).  Nomarski DIC allows you to see subtle details, alter the colors of different surfaces, and it provides a 3D look to the image applying dark shadows on one side of 3D feature and bright highlights on opposite side.
  • DIC prism slider
  • Rotatable Polarizer Slider for Episcopic illumination.
  • Analyzer Slider for Episcopic illumination.
  • Simple Polarizer for Diascopic illumination.
  • A 6" x 4" XY stage with glass plate.
  • An Abbe Condenser for concentrating and focusing lighting from below the stage.
  • A high definition (18 Megapixel) DS-Ri2 Nikon camera.
  • A "smart turret" which communicates which objective is being used to the computer.
  • Nikon NIS-Elements D Software with wide range of advanced features.
  • Camera image is carefully calibrated, so software can take accurate point to point distance measurements.   
  • Metadata from image can be stored along with image.

Contact Information

Both the Flexible and Nanopatterning Cleanrooms have a Nikon LV100ND.

Flexible Cleanroom: nano-fcr-staff@lists.stanford.edu
Nanopatterning Cleanroom: nano-npc-staff@lists.stanford.edu

Getting Started and Training Information

In order to become a qualified user of the Nikon optical microscope, you need to follow each of these steps in the order as listed here:

  1. Complete the process to become a lab member of SNSF and follow the instructions to activate a Badger account.
  2. Flexible Cleanroom:
    1. Complete all requirements to become a qualified user for the Flexible Cleanroom.
    2. No further training is required. If you require assistance with the tool, please contact nano-fcr-staff@lists.stanford.edu.
  3. Nanopatterning Cleanroom:
    1. Complete all requirements to become a qualified user for the Nanopatterning Cleanroom.
    2. No further training is required. If you require assistance with the tool, please contact nano-npc-staff@lists.stanford.edu.

Resources

Nikon LV100ND - Hardware Overview and Basic Operations
Nikon LV100ND - Software Interface