Optical arrangement disposed in a microscope beam path
AssigneeLeica Microsystems Heidelberg GmbH
InventorsJohann Engelhardt, Christiane Ihrig
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Abstract
The invention concerns an optical arrangement disposed in the beam path of a microscope, in particular a confocal scanning microscope, an illuminating pinhole diaphragm (6) and a detection pinhole diaphragm (7) being disposed in the illuminating beam path (1) between the light source (2) and object (3) and in the detection beam path (4) between the detector (5) and the object (3), respectively. In order to be able to carry out continuous depth discrimination and adapt itself optimally to lenses, wavelengths and efficiency, the optical arrangement is designed and developed such that a verifocal lens system (8) for varying the optically effective pinhole diaphragm diameter is provided at least between one of the pinhole diaphragms (6, 7) and the object (3).
Claims17
An optical system in a light path of a confocal microscope, said confocal microscope having a light source and a detector, an illumination light path between said light source and an object and a detection light path between said object and said detector, and an illuminating pinhole in the illumination light path and a detecting pinhole in said detection light path, said optical system comprising:
- a beamsplitter in said illumination optical path between said illuminating pinhole and said object and in said detection optical path between said object and said detecting pinhole;
- a single magnifying optical system between said beamsplitter and said object, said magnifying optical system being effective for said light source to vary the optically effective pinhole diameter of said illuminating pinhole and effective for said detector to vary the optically effective pinhole diameter of said detecting pinhole.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.