Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Nahoko Hisata

Yukio Eda

Terumasa Morita

Yasuhiro Kamihara

Tomio Endo

Yasutada Miura

Hirohisa Fujimoto

Yukawa Hiroshi

A confocal microscope is provided which uses a confocal disk. The confocal microscope includes a light source, a high-NA and low-magnification objective lens which forms an image of the confocal disk obtained by irradiation with a light from the light source on a sample, and a first image formation lens system disposed between the confocal disk and the objective lens. A first image formation lens driving mechanism is provided for moving the first image formation lens system in a light axis direction and adjusting a focal point position of the objective lens with respect to the sample, and a second image formation lens system is provided which forms a sectioning image formed on the confocal disk into an image by photoelectric conversion.

Confocal microscope and height measurement method using the same

A confocal microscope has a light source, an optical system, a rotating disk, an image capturing device such as a CCD camera, a subtracting section, a detector, and an adjusting device. The rotating disk has a transparent portion transmitting a light beam emitted from a light source and a light-permeable portion which includes transparent and opaque areas. The image capturing device alternately captures a composite image and a bright field image while the rotating disk is rotating. A subtracting section performs subtraction between a newest captured image and a last captured image, whenever a newest captured image is captured, so as to extract the confocal image. The detector detects at least once whether the captured image is the composite image or the bright field image. The adjusting device adjusts the plus/minus sign of the confocal image on the basis of a result detected by the detector. The confocal microscope can extract the confocal image by performing subtraction between the newest captured image and the last captured image. Thus, whenever image data is captured, the newest confocal image is displayed. The image display rate is more than twice of that of the conventional art (half of the capturing rate), so that a nearly real-time confocal image can be obtained.

Confocal microscope

Ultrasonic wave converged by an acoustic lens is made incident onto a sample and wave reflected from the sample is received and converted into received electric signal by a transducer. A part of this electric signal is picked up by a gate section and the signal thus picked up is applied to an attenuator where it is converted into a variable ratio of input to output. The strength of the signal thus gain-adjusted is compared with a threshold value by a comparator. Responsive to the comparison result thus obtained, the gain of the attenuator is adjusted to make the input/output ratio of the attenuator a desired value. A computer calculates the focus position of the acoustic lens from a gain curve of the attenuator changing when the acoustic lens is moved from a position, remote enough from its focus position, to the sample. Drivel signal responsive to the result thus calculated is applied to a Z-drive control section. As the result, the distance of the acoustic lens relative to the sample is adjusted to bring the acoustic lens to the focus position.

Ultrasonic microscope having an automatic focusing adjustment mechanism

In an ultrasonic microscope apparatus, an ultrasonic pulse transmitter-receiver emits an ultrasonic wave irradiated on a sample, receives an echo from the sample, and emits an electric output signal in accordance with the received echo. A scanner is provided for scanning the sample by relatively moving the ultrasonic pulse transmitter/receiver and the sample, and, a detection circuit is provided for detecting an echo component included in the output signal from the ultrasonic pulse transmitter-receiver and for emitting a detected signal. A picture quality adjuster receives the detected signal, adjusts brightness and contrast of the detected signal, and outputs the adjusted signal as an image signal. An adjustment controller adjusts the adjustment amount of brightness and contrast in the picture quality adjuster in accordance with the brightness and contrast values of the image signal output from the picture quality adjuster.

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Hino, Japan

Nahoko Hisata