Patent ID: 8780192

Claim:
A sample observation device comprising: an excitation light generation unit which generates excitation light for exciting a sample; an intermediate image forming unit which projects the excitation light to the sample, and forms an intermediate image of the sample at an intermediate image position from observing light generated by illuminating the sample with the excitation light; a confocal modulation unit which modulates spatial intensity distributions of the excitation light and the intermediate image at the intermediate image position; a modulation drive unit which moves a modulation pattern of the confocal modulation unit relative to the intermediate image; an image relay unit which relays on an image forming surface the intermediate image whose spatial intensity distribution has been modulated; an image pickup unit which converts the spatial intensity distribution of the intermediate image relayed on the image forming surface into digital image data; and an image processing unit which performs image processing on the digital image data, wherein: a cutoff frequency of the image relay unit exceeds a cutoff frequency of the intermediate image forming unit; a Nyquist frequency of the image pickup unit exceeds the cutoff frequency of the intermediate image forming unit; the image processing unit performs a high frequency enhancing process for enhancing a high frequency component exceeding the cutoff frequency of the intermediate image forming unit; the confocal modulation unit comprises a mask having a pinhole-shaped aperture arranged periodically; the sample observation device further comprises a microlens array having a condensing position at the pinhole-shaped aperture, wherein the microlens array is arranged between the excitation light generation unit and the confocal modulation unit; and the modulation drive unit is configured to move the microlens array and the mask without changing relative positions of the microlens array and the mask.