Dutch scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope, an instrument that permits the study of internal cell structure without the need to stain and thus kill the cells.

Zernike obtained his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam in 1915. He became an assistant at the State University of Groningen in 1913 and served as a full professor there from 1920 to 1958. His earliest work in optics was concerned with astronomical telescopes. While studying the flaws that occur in some diffraction gratings because of the imperfect spacing of engraved lines, he discovered the phase-contrast principle. He noted that he could distinguish the light rays that passed through different transparent materials. He built a microscope using that principle in 1938. In 1952 Zernike was awarded the Rumford medal of the Royal Society of London.