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Objectives
sion lenses, including Bruno Hasert in
Eisenach, Kellner in Wetzlar, G&S
Merz in Munich and Hugo Schroder
in Hamburg. Hartnack’s immersion
lenses, however, were considered the
best.
At the “Exposition Universelle” in
1867 in Paris, Ernst Grundlach (1834-
1908) presented his new glycerin immersion
lens, claiming that he developed
the lens because he wanted to
use an immersion medium with a
higher refractive index than water.
In 1871, Tolles once again presented
something new: he used
Canada balsam as an immersion
medium for homogenous immersion.
His discovery that Canada balsam has
the same refractive index as the
crown glass that was standard at
the time remained unused until Ernst
Abbe discovered a suitable liquid in
1877. The Zeiss Optical Works in Jena
also produced initial water immersion
objectives in 1871. In 1872, Carl
Zeiss introduced the Abbe water immersion
objective. Three objectives
Innovation 15, Carl Zeiss AG, 2005
were offered in the Zeiss catalog at
the time, all with an aperture of
180°. They had different working distances,
but also a numerical aperture
of 1.0. Objective no. 3 was equipped
with a correction ring.
In August 1873, Robert Tolles built
a three-lens objective for homogenous
immersion in balsam with a numerical
aperture of 1.25. It was the
first homogenous immersion system
for microscopes to be recognized at
the time. In the same month, he produced
his first objective for glycerin
immersion with a numerical aperture
of 1.27.
In August 1877, Carl Zeiss began
building Abbe’s oil immersion objectives
which later became known as
“homogenous” immersion. The design
of the Zeiss oil immersion objectives
was influenced by the work of
J. W. Stephenson, which Abbe emphasized
in a lecture to the Jena Society
for Medicine and Natural Science
in 1879.
In 1879, Ernst Abbe published his
details
Glycerin
1,2,3 propanetriol – is the most
simple tertiary alcohol. The Greek
word glykerós means “sweet”.
The viscous, hygroscopic, sweettasting
liquid boils at 290 °C and
freezes at 18 °C. Glycerin can be
mixed with water and lower-order
alcohols. A mixture of water and
glycerin is used in microscopy for
immersion. It is mainly used in UV
microscopy as glycerin transmits
UV light.
“On New Methods for Improving
Spherical Correction” in the “Royal
Microscopical Society” magazine. In
this article, Abbe described the optics
he used in his 1873 experiments. He
also added that homogenous immersion
systems make it possible to
achieve an aperture at the limits of
the optical materials used and available
at the time. Robert Koch was
one of the first to utilize the Abbe oil
immersion objective and the Abbe
condenser system for research purposes.
In 1904, Carl Zeiss manufactured
its 10,000th objective for
homogenous oil immersion.
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