Confocal microscope and relay optical system for use in confocal microscope and the like

摘要

A confocal unit that can be removably attached to a microscope body to construct a confocal microscope that is compact and suffers a minimal loss of brightness. A relay optical system for use in the confocal microscope has a compact structure with a reduced overall length and requires a reduced number of lens elements. A scanning disc placed at the image position of an objective lens is illuminated with light from a light source. Light passing through the scanning disc illuminates a specimen through the objective lens. Light reflected from the specimen passes through the objective lens again to form an image near the scanning disc. Light passing through the scanning disc passes through a relay optical system to form a specimen image. The scanning disc is rotated at high speed to scan the specimen with illuminating light at high speed, thereby obtaining a specimen image. The image is received with an image pickup device. The illuminating optical system, the scanning disc and the relay optical system can be removably attached to the microscope body as a confocal unit. The scanning disc, the relay optical system and the image pickup device are arranged in approximately the same straight line.