Patent ID: 9625380
Date: 2017-04-18
CPC Classifications: G01B,G01N

Claim:
1. An optical tomographic observation device, comprising: a light source which emits laser light; an optical system provided with an optical element which splits a light beam emitted from the light source into a first light beam and a second light beam, an objective optical element which condenses the first light beam onto a sample and irradiates it with the first light beam, and receives reflected light reflected from the sample as signal light, a reflection element which is provided in an optical path of the second light beam and reflects the second light beam as reference light, and an optical element which multiplexes the signal light and the reference light; a plurality of photodetectors; an interference optical system which guides the multiplexed light beam to the plurality of photodetectors and makes the signal light interfere with the reference light on each detector in a relation that they are mutually different in phase; a control unit which controls a condensing position of the first beam with which the sample is to be irradiated; and an arithmetic operation circuit which performs an arithmetic operation of making outputs from the plurality of photodetectors into inputs and acquires a detection signal corresponding to the signal light, wherein when λ is a wavelength of the laser light, Δλ is a wavelength half width at half maximum, NA is a numerical aperture of the objective optical element, S is an effective area of the photodetector, and M is a detection magnification of a detection surface relative to a condensing surface, the following formula is satisfied