Specialized Microscopy Techniques

Abstract

There are quite a few types of microscopy and microscopical techniques that are used occasionally in pharmaceutical microscopy but do not deserve chapter status. In some cases, these techniques are quite useful in biological applications but have only a few limited uses in pharmaceutics. In other cases, you simply need to be aware of the nature of the technique and the appropriate applications in case you get asked if that technique is applicable to the problem at hand. A pet peeve of mine is that it seems to be the considered the essence of good scientific management today to suggest alternative ways of looking at a problem – even if the manager has very little idea of the nature and limitations of the technique. I cannot count the number of times a manager, director, or vice-president has asked a question such as “Have you considered using cyclotron radiation for your IR experiment?” “Well, no I haven’t because it’s a really dumb idea and won’t help solve the problem in any way, shape or form.” Of course, I do not say those things, but I sure think them. Some of the techniques below have, as I mentioned, important applications in biological science or other fields but only limited applications in physical pharmacy. Some of these techniques, I think, are under-utilized in our industry and I think it may be worth our time to work them into our projects. A prime example of the latter is defect analysis by TEM. There are significant hurdles to this application but I think it is an under-studied area.