Timeline A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale represen ...

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisi ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

* c. 700 BCE: The " Nimrud lens" of Assyrians manufacture, a rock crystal disk with a convex shape believed to be a burning or magnifying lens. * 13th century: The increase in use of lenses in eyeglasses probably led to the wide spread use of simple microscopes (single lens

magnifying glass A magnifying glass is a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle. A magnifying glass can be used to focus light, such as to concentrate the sun's radiation to c ...

es) with limited magnification. * 1590: earliest date of a claimed Hans Martens/

Zacharias Janssen Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg. He is associated with the invention of the first optical telescope and/or the first truly ...

invention of the

compound microscope The optical microscope, also referred to as a light microscope, is a type of microscope that commonly uses visible light and a system of lenses to generate magnified images of small objects. Optical microscopes are the oldest design of microsc ...

(claim made in 1655).Jan L. Harrington, Technology and Society, Jones & Bartlett Publishers - 2011, page 221 * After 1609:

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He ...

is described as being able to close focus his telescope to view small objects close up and/or looking through the wrong end in reverse to magnify small objects. A telescope used in this fashion is the same as a

but historians debate whether Galileo was magnifying small objects or viewing near by objects with his terrestrial telescope (convex objective/concave eyepiece) reversed. * 1619: Earliest recorded description of a compound microscope, Dutch Ambassador

Willem Boreel Sir Willem Boreel, 1st Baronet (2 March 1591 in Middelburg – 29 September 1668 in Paris) was a Dutch diplomat. Biography Willem Boreel was the son of Jacob Boreel (1552-1636), burgomaster of Bergen-op-Zoom. Adam Boreel and the jurist Abraham B ...

sees one in London in the possession of Dutch inventor

Cornelis Drebbel Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel ( ) (1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, op ...

, an instrument about eighteen inches long, two inches in diameter, and supported on three brass dolphins. * 1621: Cornelis Drebbel presents, in London, a compound microscope with a convex objective and a convex eyepiece (a "Keplerian" microscope). * c.1622: Drebbel presents his invention in Rome. * 1624: Galileo improves on a compound microscope he sees in Rome and presents his ''occhiolino'' to Prince Federico Cesi, founder of the ''

Accademia dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the " Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in R ...

'' (in English, ''The Linceans''). * 1625:

Francesco Stelluti Francesco Stelluti (12 January 1577, in Fabriano – November 1652, in Rome) was an Italian polymath who worked in the fields of mathematics, microscopy, literature, and astronomy. Along with Federico Cesi, Anastasio de Filiis and Johannes van He ...

and Federico Cesi publish Apiarium, the first account of observations using a compound microscope * 1625:

Giovanni Faber Giovanni Faber (or Johann Faber, sometimes also known as Fabri or Fabro) (1574–1629) was a German papal doctor, botanist and art collector, originally from Bamberg in Bavaria, who lived in Rome from 1598. He was curator of the Vatican botanic ...

of Bamberg (1574–1629) of the Linceans, after seeing Galileo's ''occhiolino'', coins the word ''microscope'' by analogy with ''telescope''. * 1655: In an investigation by

, Dutch spectacle-maker Johannes Zachariassen claims his father,

, invented the compound microscope in 1590. Zachariassen's claimed dates are so early it is sometimes assumed, for the claim to be true, that his grandfather, Hans Martens, must have invented it. Findings are published by writer Pierre Borel. Discrepancies in Boreel's investigation and Zachariassen's testimony (including misrepresenting his date of birth and role in the invention) has led some historians to consider this claim dubious. * 1661:

Marcello Malpighi Marcello Malpighi (10 March 1628 – 30 November 1694) was an Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the "Founder of microscopical anatomy, histology & Father of physiology and embryology". Malpighi's name is borne by several ph ...

observed capillary structures in frog lungs. * 1665:

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...

publishes '' Micrographia'', a collection of biological drawings. He coins the word ''cell'' for the structures he discovers in

cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

bark. * 1674:

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek ( ; ; 24 October 1632 – 26 August 1723) was a Dutch microbiologist and microscopist in the Golden Age of Dutch science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as " the ...

improves on a simple microscope for viewing biological specimens (see

Van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across t ...

). * 1825: Joseph Jackson Lister develops combined lenses that cancelled

spherical A sphere () is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the ce ...

and

chromatic aberration In optics, chromatic aberration (CA), also called chromatic distortion and spherochromatism, is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. It is caused by dispersion: the refractive index of the lens elements varies with the w ...

. * 1846:

Carl Zeiss Carl Zeiss (; 11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a German scientific instrument maker, optician and businessman. In 1846 he founded his workshop, which is still in business as Carl Zeiss AG. Zeiss gathered a group of gifted practica ...

founded

Carl Zeiss AG Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid th ...

, to mass-produce microscopes and other optical instruments. * 1850s: John Leonard Riddell, Professor of Chemistry at

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

, invents the first practical binocular microscope.{{cite journal , author = Riddell JL , title = On the binocular microscope , journal = Q J Microsc Sci , volume = 2 , pages = 18–24 , year = 1854 * 1863: Henry Clifton Sorby develops a metallurgical microscope to observe structure of meteorites. * 1860s:

Ernst Abbe Ernst Karl Abbe HonFRMS (23 January 1840 – 14 January 1905) was a German physicist, optical scientist, entrepreneur, and social reformer. Together with Otto Schott and Carl Zeiss, he developed numerous optical instruments. He was also a c ...

, a colleague of

, discovers the Abbe sine condition, a breakthrough in microscope design, which until then was largely based on trial and error. The company of

exploited this discovery and becomes the dominant microscope manufacturer of its era. * 1928:

Edward Hutchinson Synge Edward Hutchinson Synge (1 June 1890 – 26 May 1957) was an Irish physicist who published a complete theoretical description of the near-field scanning optical microscope, an instrument used in nanotechnology, several decades before it was expe ...

publishes theory underlying the

near-field scanning optical microscope Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) or scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) is a microscopy technique for nanostructure investigation that breaks the far field resolution limit by exploiting the properties of evanescent wave ...

* 1931:

Ernst Ruska Ernst August Friedrich Ruska (; 25 December 1906 – 27 May 1988) was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for his work in electron optics, including the design of the first electron microscope. Life and career Erns ...

starts to build the first

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

. It is a

transmission electron microscope Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a gr ...

(TEM). * 1936:

Erwin Wilhelm Müller Erwin Wilhelm Müller (or ''Mueller'') (June 13, 1911 – May 17, 1977) was a German physicist who invented the Field Emission Electron Microscope (FEEM), the Field Ion Microscope (FIM), and the Atom-Probe Field Ion Microscope. He and his st ...

invents the

field emission microscope Field-emission microscopy (FEM) is an analytical technique used in materials science to investigate molecular surface structures and their electronic properties. Invented by Erwin Wilhelm Müller in 1936, the FEM was one of the first surface-anal ...

. * 1938: James Hillier builds another TEM. * 1951:

invents the

field ion microscope The Field ion microscope (FIM) was invented by Müller in 1951. It is a type of microscope that can be used to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a sharp metal tip. On October 11, 1955, Erwin Müller and his Ph.D. student, Kanwa ...

and is the first to see

atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...

s. * 1953: Frits Zernike, professor of

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

, receives the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope. * 1955: Georges Nomarski, professor of

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

, published the theoretical basis of

differential interference contrast microscopy Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast (NIC) or Nomarski microscopy, is an optical microscopy technique used to enhance the contrast in unstained, transparent samples. DIC works on the p ...

.Nomarski, G. (1955). Microinterféromètre différentiel à ondes polarisées. J. Phys. Radium, Paris 16: 9S-11S * 1957:

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory ...

, a professor at MIT, invents the confocal microscope, an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a spatial pinhole to block out-of-focus light in image formation. This technology is a predecessor to today's widely used

confocal laser scanning microscope Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a sp ...

. * 1967:

adds time-of-flight spectroscopy to the

, making the first

atom probe The atom probe was introduced at th14th Field Emission Symposium in 1967by Erwin Wilhelm Müller and J. A. Panitz. It combined a field ion microscope with a mass spectrometer having a single particle detection capability and, for the first time ...

and allowing the chemical identification of each individual atom. * 1981:

Gerd Binnig Gerd Binnig (; born 20 July 1947) is a German physicist. He is most famous for having won the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Heinrich Rohrer in 1986 for the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope. Early life and education Binnig wa ...

and

Heinrich Rohrer Heinrich Rohrer (6 June 1933 – 16 May 2013) was a Swiss physicist who shared half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig for the design of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The other half of the Prize was awarded to Ernst ...

develop the

scanning tunneling microscope A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 ...

(STM). * 1986:

, Quate, and Gerber invent the

atomic force microscope Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning force microscopy (SFM) is a very-high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the op ...

(AFM). * 1988: Alfred Cerezo, Terence Godfrey, and George D. W. Smith applied a position-sensitive detector to the

, making it able to resolve materials in three dimensions with near-atomic resolution. * 1988: Kingo Itaya invents the electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope. * 1991:

Kelvin probe force microscope Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM), also known as surface potential microscopy, is a noncontact variant of atomic force microscopy (AFM). By raster scanning in the x,y plane the work function of the sample can be locally mapped for correlation ...

invented. * 2009: Dame

Pratibha Gai Dame Pratibha Laxman Gai-Boyes is a British microscopist and Professor and Chair of Electron Microscopy and former Director at The York JEOL Nanocentre, Departments of Chemistry and Physics, University of York. She created the atomic-resolutio ...

invented the in-situ atomic-resolution environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM). She decided not to patent her invention in order to further the advancement of science.

References

Microscopy

Microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisi ...