CONFOCAL SLIT DIVIDED-APERTURE MICROSCOPE - APPLICATIONS IN EAR RESEARCH

A confocal, scanning slit microscope that uses separate portions of th e objective aperture for illumination and imaging rays achieves a high degree of optical sectioning. This capability permits visualization o f individual cells within the intact inner ear in guinea pigs and cats , and it facilitates directing a laser heterodyne interferometer beam so that vibration of selected cells can be measured. A concentric sing let lens is added to the front of a long-working-distance microscope o bjective to increase the numerical aperture from 0.4 to 0.53 while ret aining a working distance of 6 mm. The measure optical-sectioning capa bility is compared with the theoretical performance and with the calcu lated curve for a full-aperture pinhole confocal system.