Olympus U-CPA Conoscopic Polarizing Intermediate Piece with Bertrand Lens

The Olympus U-CPA is a conoscopic polarizing intermediate piece with an integrated Bertrand lens, designed to install between the body and observation head of Olympus BX series upright microscopes. Conoscopy is an advanced polarized light technique in which a high-numerical-aperture objective focuses a cone of converging polarized light through the specimen — allowing all directions of light propagation to be observed simultaneously in the back focal plane of the objective. The Bertrand lens in the U-CPA relays this back focal plane image to the eyepiece or camera, producing a conoscopic interference figure: a characteristic pattern of rings and isogyres whose shape, symmetry, and color distribution reveal the crystal system, optical sign, birefringence magnitude, and optical axis orientation of the specimen. This information is unobtainable by conventional orthoscopic (standard) polarized light observation alone, making the U-CPA an essential tool for quantitative polarized light microscopy. The unit installs non-destructively between the BX body and head and is compatible with the full range of BX series microscopes.