CONFOCAL MICROSCOPE DEVICE AND CONFOCAL OBSERVATION METHOD

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable an observation with a high resolving power exceeding imaging capability of microscopes.SOLUTION: A confocal microscope device exemplifying the present invention comprises: an illumination optical system that converges illumination light to an observation object plane; an observation optical system that converges observation light emerging from a converging point of the illumination light; a mask unit that disposes a principal pinhole at a position conjugate relative to the converging point, and disposes a sub-pinhole at a position out of the position; a detection unit that individually produces a principal intensity signal indicative of intensity of the observation light passing through the principal pinhole and a sub-intensity signal indicative of intensity of the observation light passing through the sub-pinhole; a scanning unit that scans the observation object plane with a probe composed of a principal pinhole image serving as an image of the principal pinhole, a sub-pinhole image serving as an image of the sub-pinhole and the converging point of the illumination light; and a computation unit that subtracts a value corresponding to the sub-intensity signal produced when the sub-pinhole image is located at the observation object point from the principal intensity signal produced when the principal pinhole image is located at an observation object point of the observation object plane.