CONFOCAL SCANNING MICROSCOPE WITH ANGLED OBJECTIVE LENSES FOR IMPROVED AXIAL RESOLUTION

摘要

A confocal microscope has an illuminating aperture (10) and a detecting aperture (20), whose optical axes (12, 22) intersect at an angle. Multiplication of a predominantly transverse section of the point spread function (14') of one aperture with the predominantly axial section of the point spread function (24') of the other aperture results in improved axial resolution to the extent that the transverse section is narrower than the axial section.