REAL-TIME HIGH-PERFORMANCE CONFOCAL LASER SCANNING OPTICAL MICROSCOPE

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A no-moving-parts, 30-frames-per-second, laser beam scanning confocal reflected light microscope has been developed. In principle the technique can be extended to fluorescence and transmission light microscopy. Acousto-optic beam deflectors, controlled by all-digital electronics, move a laser beam in a 512line interlaced raster. The light enters an inverted microscope through the epi-fluorescence side camera port, and is imaged at the object by the microscope objective. Reflected light returns through the objective, out the camera port, and is imaged onto the photocathode of an Image Dissector Tube (IDT) . Confocality is provided by raster-scanning the IDT aperture coincident with the congruent image of the laser beam incident on the object. Realtime, jitter-free reflected light images of a variety of biological objects have been produced. Computer-controlled alignment of the laser scan and IDT is performed in several seconds.