The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 08, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 19, 1999
Jürgen Wulf, Ueberlingen, DE;
Bodenseewerk Perkin-Elmer GmbH, Ueberlingen, DE;
Abstract
The present invention relates to a light scanning device for exciting and detecting an emission of secondary light, especially fluorescent light, of a sample, comprising a light generating device for generating scanning light in the form of a single light beam, a deflection unit used for effecting a deflection of the scanning light for scanning at least one subarea of the sample, said deflection being variable in at least one direction, an imaging unit for forming an image of the secondary light emanating from the sample, and a detection unit for detecting the secondary light. When a sample with a large surface to be rastered is subjected to fluorescence examination with high spatial resolution, undesirably long scanning times occur. For reducing the scanning time and for simultaneously maintaining the high resolution in the case of such a sample, the light scanning device according to the present invention comprises a division device for dividing the single light beam into at least two light beams. This has the effect that, instead of the former sequential scanning of the sample, a subdivision into fields is carried out, said fields being scanned simultaneously by the plurality of light beams. The scanning time can therefore be reduced in accordance with the number of the simultaneously scanned fields of the sample.