Olympus Corporation

Yohei Kuwabara

Akinori Araya

Kunihiko Sasaki

Brightness information with a wide dynamic range is acquired and observed while preventing degradation of a detector. The invention provides a microscope system including a scanner that two-dimensionally scans laser light emitted from a light source unit on a specimen; a detector () that detects light from the specimen on which the laser light is scanned by the scanner and outputs a light intensity signal corresponding to the light intensity of the detected light; a PC that converts the light intensity signal output from the detector () to brightness information at each pixel corresponding to the scanning position of the scanner and that generates an image of the specimen; a second integrating circuit () that calculates an integrated value corresponding to the total light intensity signal output from the detector () within a given time; a comparator () that determines whether or not that integrated value of a voltage signal exceeds a prescribed threshold; and a high-voltage control portion () that stops detection of light by the detector () when it is determined by the comparator () that the voltage signal exceeds the prescribed threshold.

Scanning laser microscope

Provided is a photodetector including a light receiving portion that accumulates and outputs the amount of received observation light as electric charges; an offset portion that adds an offset signal to an output signal from the light receiving portion; an AD conversion portion that AD-converts the sum of the output signal and the offset signal obtained by the offset portion; a control unit that controls the AD conversion portion such that it A-D converts said sum when the light receiving portion is charged and discharged; and an offset correcting portion that corrects the offset signal by adjusting the value of the offset signal contained in the black level value such that the black level value obtained by the AD conversion portion from said sum when the capacitor is discharged becomes equal to a predetermined target value.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yohei Kuwabara