Method for the scanning confocal light-optical microscopic and indepth examination of an extended field and devices for implementing said method

Device for the scanning confocal light-optical microscopic and in-depth examination of an extended field comprising:

• a luminous source delivering a principal luminous beam extending towards the object to be examined:
• spatial filtering and focussing means,
• focussing means focussing said beam onto the object to be examined,
• a separating plate returning a luminous beam reflected by the object to be examined,
• a detection system delivering a signal on an output and comprising a diaphragm placed at a conjugated point of a focussing point of the focussing means,
• a digital processing and analysis system having an input connected to the output of the detection system, namely a device wherein:
• the luminous source is polychromatic and the principal luminous beam is made up of a plurality of secondary beams of different wave lengths and wherein the focussing means present axial chromatics.

Device for the scanning confocal light-optical microscopic and in-depth examination of an extended field comprising a luminous source delivering a principal luminous beam extending towards the object to be examined, wherein it includes:

• means to divide the principal luminous beam into a plurality of secondary beams and in order to send the secondary beams to means to temporally modulate the amplitude of each secondary beam at a particular frequency,
• focussing means allowing for a different focussing of each secondary beam,
• means for recombining and returning the secondary beams, one principal beam resulting from this recombination,
• a first focussing system,
• a second focussing system allowing for focussing at different altitudes of each secondary beam, and wherein a separating plate, placed between the luminous source and the separation means of the principal beam on the path of a beam reflected by the object to be examined, namely a reflected beam having retraversed in the opposite direction the various elements of the device, sends said reflected beam towards a detection system by means of a filtering and focussing system.