TUNABLE OPTICAL SECTIONING IN CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY BY USE OF SYMMETRICAL DEFOCUSING AND APODIZATION

We present two novel optical methods to achieve a significative improv ement in the optical-sectioning capacity of confocal scanning microsco pes. The techniques, whose real power is the simplicity with which the y can be implemented, consist of a suitable combination of symmetrical defocusing with two different manners of apodizing both parts of the confocal architecture. It is shown that the proposed techniques are us eful in both the bright-held and the fluorescence modes and for reflec tion and transmission geometries. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.