Abstract

The discovery and developments of visible light microscopy undoubtedly moved forward the advancements in various branches of science. Since its discovery, it significantly benefited biology, medicine, physics, material science and many other fields, allowing for major contributions in almost all aspects of life. Work initiated by Hans and Zacharias Janssen, Robert Hooke, Anton van Leeuwenhoek and later by Ernst Abbe, among others, allowed finally to construct diffraction-limited visible-light optical systems, capable of imaging features with a few hundreds of nanometers spatial resolution.