Patent ID: 9494781
Filing Date: 2016-11-15
CPC Classification: G02B

Claim Text:
1. A plane-projection multi-photon microscope comprising: a sample holder; at least one excitation source, said excitation source being capable of producing an excitation power of adequate intensity to induce significant levels of multi-photon excitation in a sample and being disposed such that the excitation is directed along at least one excitation beam path; at least one excitation optic comprising at least a scatterer having one of either a spatially variable optical path length or spatially variable refractory index sufficient to transform the excitation source into an excitation plane of randomly temporally separated point light sources, and further comprising at least one excitation objective for focusing and confining a peak excitation intensity of said excitation plane onto and within at least a portion of the sample holder such that a sample excitation region is delineated; and an imaging detector defining at least one detection beam path and capable of detecting an excitation generated signal contrast from the sample excitation region, the detector being disposed such that the detection direction of the at least one detection beam path is substantially orthogonal to the sample excitation region wherein the excitation objective of the excitation optic comprises at least two lenses; wherein the excitation objective of the excitation optic comprises at least two lenses; wherein the difference in axial height between any two adjacent microlenses is chosen such that the time delay between the two adjacent microlenses is equal to or larger than the pulse duration of a pulse from the excitation source.