Guide to microscope maintenance

How to clean your microscope and specimen slides

We teamed up with imaging experts Olympus to bring you this guide to microscope maintenance: essential cleaning and maintenance tips for your laboratory microscopes and specimen slides, to ensure that you get the most out of your instruments.

Keeping your microscope, its optical system and specimen slides clean is crucial for ensuring good image quality, proper optical performance and reducing the risk of sample contamination.

Dirt or dust on optical glasses might be seen during observations: reducing image quality and causing areas of fog or shade. Left unchecked, dust spots on lenses, prisms, filters can become difficult to remove and even start to mould.

It’s also important to remove oil residue straight away so the microscope is ready for the next user and to prevent potential contamination of the next specimen. Residual oil can also trap dirt and dust reducing image quality.

In short, make microscope cleaning a habitual part of your laboratory maintenance routine.

Our maintenance guide covers:

1) Cleaning the microscope frame

2) How to clean the optical system

3) How to clean specimen slides

Use the link provided to read the full article.