What is a confocal microscope best used for?

What is a confocal microscope best used for?

By scanning across the sample, an image of it can be created. Confocal microscopes are used in the semiconductor industry, as well as in life and material science labs. Confocal microscopy is especially useful in studying live cells.

What is the principle of confocal microscopy?

The basic principle of confocal microscopy is that the illumination and detection optics are focused on the same diffraction-limited spot, which is moved over the sample to build the complete image on the detector.

What does it mean when a microscope is confocal?

Similar to the widefield microscope, the confocal microscope uses fluorescence optics. Instead of illuminating the whole sample at once, laser light is focused onto a defined spot at a specific depth within the sample. By scanning the specimen in a raster pattern, images of one single optical plane are created.

Who invented the confocal microscope?

Marvin Minsky
Confocal microscopy/Inventors
A confocal microscope was invented in 1951 by Marvin Minsky, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University studying neural networks in living brain (Minsky, 1988). In 1957, Minsky patented the concept of confocal imaging, the illumination and detection of a single diffraction-limited spot in a specimen (Fig. 1A).

What is the resolution of confocal microscope?

When optimally used, confocal microscopes may reach resolutions of 180 nm laterally and 500 nm axially, however, axial resolution in depth is often impaired by spherical aberration that may occur due to refractive index mismatches.

What is a reversed microscope?

An inverted microscope is a microscope with its light source and condenser on the top, above the stage pointing down, while the objectives and turret are below the stage pointing up. It was invented in 1850 by J. Lawrence Smith, a faculty member of Tulane University (then named the Medical College of Louisiana).