Patent ID: 7221503

Claim:
A laser confocal scanning microscope comprising: means, including a laser light source, for emitting laser light beams at different wavelengths; a beam path for directing said laser light beams from said laser light beam emitting means to an object stage for supporting an object, said beam path including a first deflector including an acousto-optical deflector for effecting line scanning, at least one objective for focussing the laser light beams onto the object on said object stage, a second deflector positioned between said acousto-optical deflector and said at least one objective for effecting frame scanning, said second deflector and said at least one objective being positioned so that return light beams from the object follow the same beam path as the laser light beams focussed onto the object up to and including the second deflector, at least one detector positioned in the return light beam path downstream said second deflector for detecting the return light beams from the object, the object being adapted to be scanned by the laser light beams from the laser light beam emitting means and measurements being adapted to be made with said at least one detector in order to obtain images of the object, and an electronic control and imaging system adapted to control the laser light beam emitting means to emit individual laser light beams sequentially at selected wavelengths and adapted to dynamically adjust drive parameters of said acousto-optical deflector by dynamically controlling the start frequency and end frequency of the acousto-optical deflector in such a way as to maintain a constant line scanning position at all input beam wavelengths and dynamically controlling the rate of frequency change of the drive signal to the acousto-optical deflector in such a way as to obtain a constant lensing effect at all input beam wavelengths, to maintain alignment of the scan lines of the image at all wavelengths.