We have built a multi-purpose optical microscope by integrating a conventio
nal confocal laser microscope (CLM) and a state of the art scanning near-fi
eld optical microscope (SNOM) with a conventional inverted optical microsco
pe. The setup is designed for fluorescence imaging of delicate samples at v
ery low signal levels as found in applications in the Life Sciences. An act
ive-feedback closed-loop x-y-scanner with a scan range of 100 x 100 mu m en
ables the instrument to rapidly record large area scans using confocal micr
oscopy. Interesting areas of the samples identified by such a scan can subs
equently be investigated with sub-diffraction limited resolution. The near-
field part of the instrument is based on standard optical fibre probes and
a non-optical, tuning fork shear-force technique for maintaining the probe-
sample distance. An extremely sensitive feedback working on the phase rathe
r than the amplitude of the tuning fork response is used in order not to da
mage delicate biological samples. First results on mu-contact printed rabbi
t IgG and single molecule fluorescence are reported.