EFFICIENT REAL-TIME CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY WITH WHITE-LIGHT SOURCES

THE main advantage of confocal microscopes over their conventional cou nterparts arises from their ability to optically 'section' nearly tran sparent materials; the thin image slices thus obtained can be used to reconstruct three-dimensional images, a capability which is particular ly useful for the study of biological specimens, Confocal microscopes have previously used either a single laser-illuminated point-source an d single point-detector (which are scanned in tandem across the object ) or white-light illumination with multiple point-sources and detector s, Single-point-source systems, however, do not usually form images in real time and are restricted to using available laser wavelengths, Mu ltiple-point-source systems, on the other hand, produce images in real time but use light very inefficiently-typically 1% or less is used fo r imaging, Here we demonstrate a white-light, multiple-point-source me thod which can in principle produce images in real time,vith light eff iciencies as high as 50%. This system is likely to find broad practica l application, particularly in the imaging of weakly reflecting or wea kly fluorescent specimens.