CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY WITH MULTI-SPECTRAL ENCODING, AND SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR SPECTROSCOPICALLY ENCODED CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device capable of performing in vivo endoscopic confocal microscopy.SOLUTION: A scanning confocal microscopy system and apparatus, especially useful for endoscopy with a flexible probe which is connected to the end of an optical fiber 9. The probe has a grating 12 and a lens 14 which delivers a beam of multi-spectral light having spectral components which extend in one dimension across a region of an object and which is moved to scan in another dimension. The reflected confocal spectrum is measured to provide an image of the region.