Feasibility Study of Birefringence imaging with a tilting stage

Following on from a successful project studentship this is a proposal to continue the development of a birefringence imaging microscope incorporating a tilting stage. The birefringence is an important and sensitive measure of optical anisotropy in a sample and in conventional microscopy it is usually only observed in projection onto a microscope slide. The addition of a tilting stage enables in principle information to be obtained out of the plane and hence to give full three-dimensional data. The resulting system will help towards automatic identification of crystalline materials and, of especial interest, the determination of texture in specimens, such as in petrological sections and in mixed phase crystals. As such this topic is interdisciplinary in nature, spanning crystallography, materials science, earth sciences and chemistry.