The department recently acquired a multiphoton confocal microscope, an instrument that represents the latest development in imaging technology.
Traditional microscopes use regular light, which can cause tissue samples to appear blurry.
Confocal microscopes eliminate much of the blurriness by clocking out light emitted from structures not in focus, producing a sharper image. Living tissue specimens, however, can be damaged by confocal microscopy. The multiphoton confocal microscope is superior to traditional and confocal microscopes in that it uses infrared light to illuminate only a small dot of tissue at a time. Moreover, in living tissue, damage is minimized. Because the light beam penetrates deeply, a greater volume of tissue can be examined.