Handheld confocal scanning optical microscope systems having oscillating mirrors with varying scan angle to zoom

Abstract

A confocal microscope having a scanning head in the form of a hand piece () which may be placed at selected locations on the body of a patient. A laser beam is scanned in orthogonal (horizontal and vertical) directions by scanners () which drive scan mirrors (a,a), which are closely adjacent to each other. The optics include an objective lens () and a single telescope lens (). The telescope provides sufficient magnification to overfill the entrance pupil of the objective lens () over the entire scan angle produced by the scan mirrors (a,a). The telescope images the entrance pupil of the objective in the beam path between the mirrors of the scanners. Scanner () represents a pulse driven resonant scanner (). The pulse duration is controlled to vary the scan angle and obtain dynamic, electronic image zooming without changing the positional relationship of the telescope lenses.