Patent ID: 7705987

Claim:
A high sensitivity confocal fluorescence correlation microscope for real time alignment read out of a confocal image for performing FCS measurement of a specimen, comprising: a fluorescence confocal microscope; a fluorescence correlation spectroscope; and a beam splitter selectively placed in the microscope slider assembly at the base of the objective lens and ahead of the scanning optics of said microscope to receive the fluorescence emitted by the specimen placed on a movable sample stage and split it into transmitted part and reflected part, wherein the transmitted part travels to imaging detectors of the confocal microscope for image generation via said scanning optics and the reflected part, which is non descanned and thus a high sensitivity signal, travels separately to an apertured detector for the FCS measurements, wherein said apertured detector for FCS measurement comprises means for generating an image of a focused spot and for performing the FCS measurement and comprises: at least one optical filter placed within operable proximity of the beam splitter; an optical lens placed adjacent to the filter along the direction of the reflected fluorescence beam for focusing the beam; an optical fiber coupled to at least one fluorescence detector for producing an electric pulse for each photon collected through the optical fiber and also generate said spot image, wherein said fluorescence detector output includes said spot image and is fed separately to one of the input channels of the confocal microscope and also in parallel to a correlator, wherein the said confocal microscope is adapted to merge its images with said spot image to produce an image with a spot and having the means for moving the specimen in real time and parking the scanning beam at a desired spot in the specimen, and wherein said correlarator is adapted to carry out the FCS measurement at the desired location in the image and feeding the output of said correlator to a signal processor for performing said FCS measurement.