What type of microscope did van Leeuwenhoek create?

Answer 1

Simple Answer:

Anton van Leeuwenhoek made innovations to the simple microscope with a single lens. His microscopes received no special name and were enhancements of the "simple microscope."

Anton van Leeuwenhoek always referred to his instrument as a Vergroot-glas, which translates into magnifying glass.

He also enhanced the overall design of the simple microscope and specimen holder. He constructed at least 25 different designs of the simple microscope. (He rarely used the compound microscope which had been invented 40 years before his birth because his simple microscopes had far greater magnification.)

More:

Though Anton van Leeuwenhoek did not invent the microscope, he did make a great discovery. About 1670, he found that he could form tiny glass beads that were nearly perfect spheres and also capable of high magnification when used in a simple microscope. Indeed, his little glass spheres could magnify an object 250 times (perhaps more), about ten times better than the best compound microscopes of the day.

Beyond the discovery of the methods for making small spherical lenses, van Leeuwenhoek also built microscopes and experimented with their design, addressing the difficult problems of illuminating, holding and viewing the specimens.

He made over 500 optical lenses, though they did not necessarily go into 500 different microscopes. The microscopes themselves were expensive and time consuming to construct, but records indicate possibly as many as two hundred were made. In this process he is said to have created at least 25 variations on the basic design of the microscope.

Only nine of his microscopes are known to exist today.