Bessel beam plane illumination microscope

A microscope comprising:

• a light source for generating a light beam having a wavelength, λ;
• first beam-forming optics configured for receiving the light beam and generating a first Bessel-like beam that is directed into a sample, the beam-forming optics including a first excitation objective having a numerical aperture (NAEO) and an axis oriented in a first direction;
• imaging optics configured for receiving signal light from a position within the sample that is illuminated by the first Bessel-like beam and for imaging the received light on a detector, the imaging optics including a detection objective having a numerical aperture (NADO) and an axis oriented in a second direction that is non-parallel to the first direction;
• first beam-translation optics configured for translating the position of the first Bessel-like beam within the sample in discrete steps of more than or about λ/2NAEO to create a first excitation pattern of multiple first Bessel-like beams having a spatial period, Λ, equal to the distance between beam positions of neighboring steps and configured to create N−1 additional excitation patterns that are spatially phase shifted from the first excitation pattern by (N−1)Λ/N;
• the detector configured for detecting first signal light received by the imaging optics, the first signal light being emitted based on an interaction of the first Bessel-like beam with the sample, the detector having individual detection units;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• generate a real space constituent image for each of the N excitation patterns;
• Fourier transform each of the real space constituent images to generate reciprocal space constituent images for each of the excitation patterns;
• combine the reciprocal space constituent images to generate a final reciprocal space image;
• and
• re-transform the final reciprocal space image to generate a final real space image of the sample, wherein the final real space image of the sample has a resolution of less that λ/2NADO in a coordinate orthogonal to the first direction.