LIGHT SCANNING MICROSCOPE WITH SIMPLIFIED OPTICAL SYSTEM, MORE PARTICULARLY WITH VARIABLE PUPIL POSITION

摘要

Light scanning microscopes often comprise a scanning optical system (35) for generating a conjugate pupil plane (PE') with respect to the pupil plane of the microscope objective, and a variably adjustable beam deflection unit (30) in the conjugate pupil plane, wherein an intermediate image (Zb1) lies between the microscope objective and the scanning optical system and the light beams are collimated in the conjugate pupil plane. Such scanning optical systems are complex and not light-efficient since they have to compensate for different imaging aberrations such as image field curvature and transverse chromatic aberrations. Moreover, on account of the small distance between the conjugate pupil plane and the scanning optical system, the structural space available for the deflection unit is small. The invention is intended to enable the use of a simpler scanning optical system and to make more structural space available. That is achieved by virtue of the fact that the scanning optical system images a second intermediate image (Zb2) into the first intermediate image via the beam deflection unit, wherein the second intermediate image is spatially curved. The deflection unit is no longer arranged in a collimated, but rather in a convergent section of the beam path. The scanning optical system, in terms of the optical properties thereof and the quality thereof, then needs to correspond merely to an eyepiece rather than to a conventional scanning objective. Non-linear microscopy.