摘要 |
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a confocal laser scanning microscope, which is capable of rapidly and easily finding out a position or region where the image of a sample exists. SOLUTION: The laser beam from a laser oscillator 1 passes a beam expander. This beam is reflected by an optical path splitting element 3 and is made incident on an X direction scanner 4 and a Y direction scanner 5. The incident light is further made incident on an objective lens 8 through a projection lens 6 and image forming lens 7, by which the surface of a sample 9 is scanned two-dimensionally. The fluorescence from the sample 9 passes the optical path splitting element 3 and arrives at a dichroic mirror 11 and the reflected light is received in a non-confocal photoelectric conversion circuit 12, the transmitted light is received in a confocal photoelectric conversion circuit 12' through a confocal aperture 10 and a mirror 11'. The outputs of the photoelectric conversion circuits 12 and 12' are quantized through an analog-to-digital conversion circuit 14 and are inputted to a data processor 15, where the non-confocal brightness and confocal brightness are displayed simultaneously on a CRT monitor 16. An operator is able to find out rapidly and easily the position or region, where the image of the sample exists, while viewing this display. |