CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY WITH MULTI-SPECTRAL ENCODING AND SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR SPECTROSCOPICALLY ENCODED CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY

摘要

A scanning confocal microscopy system and apparatus, especially useful for endoscopy with a flexible probe which is connected to the end of an optical fiber (9). The probe has a grating (12) and a lens (14) which delivers a beam of multi-spectral light having spectral components which extend in one dimension across a region of an object and which is moved to scan in another dimension. The reflected confocal spectrum is measured to provide an image of the region.