# US 2021/0278650 A1 · Image Capturing Method and Apparatus

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- Number: US 2021/0278650 A1
- Document ID: US20210278650A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 17/192,621
- Filed: 2021-03-04
- Published: 2021-09-09
- Earliest claimed: 2020-03-05
- Assignees: Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH
- Applicants: Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH
- Inventors: Oliver Holub; Mirko Liedtke; Stanislav Kalinin; Dieter Huhse
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20210278650A1

## CPC

- G02B 21/0072: {details concerning resolution or correction, including general design of CSOM objectives}
- G02B 21/0032: {Optical details of illumination, e.g. light-sources, pinholes, beam splitters, slits, fibers (G02B21/0036 - G02B21/008; means for illumination of specimens in general G02B21/06)}
- G02B 21/0036: {Scanning details, e.g. scanning stages}
- G02B 21/008: {Details of detection or image processing, including general computer control}
- G02B: OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS

## Abstract

The invention relates to an image capturing apparatus and method having a detection beam path for guiding detection radiation from a sample to a detector having a plurality of detector elements. The detector has no more than ten and, in particular, four or five detector elements; and an evaluation unit is present, which is configured to carry out an evaluation in accordance with the Airyscan method on the image data captured by means of the detector and which generates a high-resolution image.

## Claims

### Claim 1

Image capturing apparatus comprising a detection beam path for guiding detection radiation from a sample to a detector having a plurality of detector elements, wherein
the detector has no more than ten and, in particular, four or five detector elements (7.1 to 7.n; with n=4 or 5); and further comprising
an evaluation unit configured to carry out an evaluation in accordance with an Airyscan method on the image data captured by means of the detector and which generates a high-resolution image.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detector is arranged in a detector plane that is conjugate to a focal plane.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a pinhole with a fixed or variable diameter is arranged in the beam path in a plane that is conjugate to the focal plane.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a phase element is arranged in the detection beam path, and incident detection radiation is split into at least two partial beams by the effect of the phase element and each of the partial beams is steered to a different detector element of the detector in each case and captured as measurement values.

### Claim 5

Image capturing method, comprising
capturing detection radiation coming from a sample in a detection beam path by means of a detector which has a plurality of detector elements,
comprising
using a detector which has at most ten and, in particular, four or five detector elements (7.1 to 7.n; with n=4 or 5) and which captures image data and there is confocal parallel sampling of the point spread function; and
evaluating the image data captured by means of the detector by means of an evaluation unit and a high-resolution image is generated.

### Claim 6 (depends on 5)

Method according to claim 5, further comprising splitting said detection radiation into at least two partial beams and steering each of the partial beams to a different detector element of a detector in each case and captured as image values.