Olympus U-AN360-3 Rotatable Analyzer

The Olympus U-AN360-3 is a rotatable analyzer for reflected light polarized microscopy, designed for use with the BX2 and BX3 series vertical illuminators on Olympus BX series upright microscopes. In polarized light microscopy, the analyzer is placed in the reflected light path after the specimen to select a specific polarization state of the reflected light — when crossed with the polarizer, it produces extinction of isotropic regions while birefringent or anisotropic features remain bright, enabling contrast mechanisms such as polarized reflected light, reflected light DIC, and birefringence analysis. The 360° continuous rotation of the U-AN360-3 allows the analyzer to be set to any angular position, providing precise control over the extinction angle and the resulting image contrast — essential for optimizing DIC bias retardation, identifying optical axes of anisotropic materials, and performing quantitative polarized light measurements. As a birefringent polarizer, the analyzer spatially separates orthogonally polarized components and transmits only the selected polarization state. Built to Olympus factory specifications (catalog number U-P221), the U-AN360-3 ensures consistent polarization performance and a guaranteed fit with BX2 and BX3 vertical illuminators.