Polarization contrast in scanning microscopy

摘要

We discuss the differences between polarization contrast imaging in conventional and confocal systems and show that because of the fundamentally different imaging properties of the two systems, the extinction coefficient is non-zero in a conventional system even with perfect polars. We then discuss the axial response of high numerical aperture systems and show that a polarization effect leads to an asymmetric response when the objective lens numerical aperture is greater than the refractive index of the specimen.