CONCEPT AND CHANGE OF A STANDARD MICROSCOP IN A MICROSCOP WITH A COMMON FURNING POINT AND EPI CONTROL WITH A SINGLE OPENING.

摘要

A microscope design for, and a kit to convert a standard epi-illumination microscope into a single aperture confocal scanning epi-illumination microscope comprises an assembly including, in one embodiment, a pair of intermediate lenses (28, 32) to create a second field plane (70) conjugate to the specimen plane (68) in both the incident and reflected light paths, with a single aperture positioned at this second conjugate field plane and controllably scanned through the plane to create the incident light beam as well as to mask the returning light before viewing. In a second embodiment, only a single lens (128) is included in the assembly and the objective lens may be positioned at its correct tube length, or a non-standard objective lens (152) may be used to prevent undesired degradation of the image. This assembly conveniently mounts to the nosepiece of the standard microscope in place of the objective lens, and the objective lens mounts to the assembly.