Key words. Confocal microscopy, direct-view microscopy, experimental axial response, optical sectioning strength, light budget. SummaryWe present a comparison between theoretical and experimental results for the axial response to a plane mirror specimen of the direct-view microscope employing multiplepinhole arrays. The effects of pinhole size, pinhole spacing and array geometry are investigated in detail with a view to (i) achieving good optical sectioning characteristics and (ii) maximizing the amount of light available for imaging. The implications of our results for practical systems as regards pinhole-array design and fabrication are also discussed.

Key words. Confocal microscopy, direct-view microscopy, multiple-pinhole source and detector arrays, optical sectioning strength, light budget. SummaryDirect-view microscopes use multiple-aperture arrays in the source and detector planes. We develop a theory for brightfield and fluorescence direct-view microscopy which allows us to determine the optical sectioning strength for finite-sized, multiple-pinhole arrays with an arbitrary distribution of apertures. We specialize to the cases of square, hexagonal and interleaving Archimedean spiral arrays and consider the implications of the array configuration on both the optical sectioning strength and the light budget.

Effect of ion induced damage on carrier lifetimes in strained CdZnSe/ZnSe quantum wells

Laser sources offer a potentially low-cost means of improving thelight throughput in tandem-scanning confocal microscopy because oftheir high beam directionality. We measure and compare the opticalsectioning characteristics of the tandem-scanning microscope (TSM)employing (i) the traditional choice of incoherent light from a Xearc lamp and (ii) a cited alternative-coherent light from a He-Nelaser source. In general the laser source is found to result inaxial responses with pronounced sidelobes, the sizes and locations ofwhich are extremely sensitive to the alignment of the pinholearray. The implications of these results for practical TSM systemsare discussed.

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