Confocal microscopy and multi-photon excitation microscopy of human skin in vivo

This paper compares tandem scanning reflected light confocal microscopy and multi-photon excitation microscopy for the observation of human skin in vi vo. Tandem scanning confocal light microscopy based on a white light source can provide video-rate image acquisition from the skin surface to the epid ermal-dermal junction. Multi-photon excitation is induced by a 80 MHz pulse train of femtosecond laser pulses at 780 nm wavelength. This nonlinear mic roscopic technique is inherently suitable for deep tissue fluorescence imag ing. The relative merits of these two techniques can be identified by compa ring movies of optical sections obtained from the forearm skin of the same volunteer. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.