The traditional polarizing microscope displays objects in Newton interference colors if their retardance is within the range of 400-2000 nm.
Unlike the traditional polarizing microscope, the polychromatic polscope has interference colors that indicate the orientation of birefringent structures and do not depend on the retardance induced by the structures, as long as their retardance values are less than about 400 nm.
Still another example of the usefulness of a polarizing microscope was found in studying a suite of rare and beautiful minerals collected at Mont Saint-Hilaire.
Identifying the unknown using the polarizing microscope was more difficult and time-consuming than previous examples (15-20 hours working time) because the largest faces of the crystals were either badly altered or coated with extraneous material, thus making it necessary to work on the extreme edges of a single, selected crystal.
Its ability to visualize isotropic Z lines of the muscle sarcomeres confirms that the pol-scope is optically at least as good as or better than an excellent-quality conventional
polarizing microscope equipped with polarization rectifiers.