US 2002/0163717 A1 · Confocal imaging apparatus and method using linear line-scanning

Abstract

The present invention relates to a confocal imaging apparatus and a method by which the frame rate and the field of view can be considerably enhanced. The apparatus of the present invention acquires the confocal images of a macroscopic specimen by combining the function of slit confocal optics, one-dimensional optical image processing, linear line-scanning, and compensating the change of the optical path length in real time. According to the present invention, the light is focused to a slit-beam on the specimen and only the light that is scattered back from the focal plane is received in parallel to form the confocal image of the specimen by the slit confocal optics that includes cylindrical lenses, a slit mask, and a line detector. In order to get the image frames, a linear line-scanning means is adopted, which linearly scans the slit-beam focused on the specimen across arbitrary desired planes that are parallel to the slit-direction of the slit-beam. Also, a real-time compensating means of the change in optical path length is adopted to remove the degrading effects on the image that is caused by the change of the optical path length during the scanning of the slit-beam.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A confocal imaging apparatus for acquiring confocal images of a macroscopic specimen, said apparatus comprising:

an illuminating means for providing an illuminating beam;
a first focusing means for focusing said illuminating beam to a first slit-beam on said specimen;
a light-collecting means for collecting the light scattered from said specimen;
a second focusing means for focusing the light collected by said light-collecting means to a second slit-beam;
a scanning means for scanning said first slit-beam across arbitrary desired planes that are parallel to the slit-direction of said first slit-beam;
an optical path-connecting means interlocked with said scanning means, for connecting the optical path between said specimen and said apparatus during scanning of said first slit-beam by said scanning means;
a real-time optical path-correcting means interlocked with said scanning means, for compensating the change of optical path length in real time during the scanning of said first slit-beam by said scanning means;
a filtering means for filtering only said second slit-beam;
and
an optical image processing means for forming images of said specimen by extracting the necessary information from the filtered second slit-beam passing through said filtering means.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Confocal imaging apparatus and method using linear line-scanning

Life of this patent

Confocal imaging apparatus and method using linear line-scanning

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims15