microscopes

Optical microscope, through their use of visible wavelengths of light, are the simplest and hence most widely used type of microscope.
Optical microscopes use refractive lenses of glass or plastic or quartz, to focus light into the eye or another light detector. Mirror-based optical microscopes operate in the same manner. Typical magnification of a light microscope, visible range light, is up to 1500x with a resolution limit of around 0.2 microns or 200 nanometers. Specialized techniques (e.g., scanning confocal microscopy) may exceed this magnification but the resolution is diffraction limited.