Patent ID: 7297961

Claim:
A fluorescence microscope, comprising: an objective lens; a first medium unit with a refractive index of n 1 for accommodating one or more micro-objects including a plurality of fluorophores with different excitation and/or fluorescence wavelength ranges and providing a path of white light as excitation light to excite the fluorophores; a third medium unit with a refractive index of n 3 placed between the first medium unit and the objective lens to totally reflect the excitation light incident through the first medium unit at an interface of the third medium unit coming into contact with the first medium unit; an image processing unit for providing images of objects obtained due to fluorescence collected by the objective lens as images; a prism including at least an incident surface, a contact surface and an output surface; a light source for providing excitation light to the incident surface of the prism; an optical coupling unit formed on the contact surface of the prism so as to allow a sample including one or more micro-objects having fluorophores to be seated thereon; and an absorber installed on the output surface of the prism to absorb the excitation light that has been totally reflected, wherein the refractive indices of the third and first medium units satisfy a relationship of n 1 >n 3 , wherein an incident angle of the excitation light on the interface is equal to or greater than a critical angle, and wherein fluorescences, emitted when fluorophores present in micro-objects that exist in the path of the excitation light within the first medium unit are excited, are captured by the objective lens, thus observing the micro-objects.