Patent ID: 7215469

Claim:
A confocal microscope comprising: a light source which emits a polarized light beam; an optical scanner which deflects and scans the polarized light beam; an objective lens which irradiates the polarized light beam, which is deflected and scanned by the optical scanner, to a sample as an excitation light beam that excites the sample so as to cause the sample to emit a polarized fluorescence; a wavelength separator which separates a necessary wavelength band from the polarized fluorescence emitted from the sample; and a photodetector unit, which comprises: a polarization property extractor which extracts a fluorescence with a predetermined polarization property from the fluorescence separated with the wavelength separator; a wavelength selector which selects a wavelength of the fluorescence extracted by the polarization property extractor; and a photodetector which detects the fluorescence selected by the wavelength selector; wherein the light source includes a plurality of light sources which emit light, and each of the plurality of light sources includes a polarizing direction changer which changes a polarizing direction of the light emitted therefrom, and wherein the polarizing direction changers cause the plurality of light sources to irradiate light onto the sample in respective different polarizing directions; and wherein a rotation relaxation time image and a fluorescent life image are calculated based on an output from the photodetector.