Patent ID: 8575569

Claim:
A fluorescence imaging apparatus, comprising: an excitation light source for exciting a sample to generate fluorescence, a two-dimensional detecting unit for detecting the fluorescence emitted from the sample, an excitation-side filter arranged between the light source and the sample, and an emission-side filter section arranged between the sample and the two-dimensional detecting unit to select the fluorescence emitted from the sample and lead the fluorescence to the two-dimensional detecting unit, wherein the excitation-side filter is a filter having a transmission wavelength band which does not overlap the transmission wavelength band of the emission-side filter, and the excitation-side filter has no transmission wavelength band of the emission-side filter section, the emission-side filter section comprises an interference filter and an absorption filter, the interference filter and the absorption filter are arranged in series in the direction along which the fluorescence travels, and the transmission wavelength bands of the interference filter and the absorption filter are combined in such a manner that the combined transmission wavelength band contains at least one part of the wavelengths of the fluorescence, and does not contain any transmission wavelength band of the excitation-side filter, wherein the excitation light source is a single-wavelength excitation light source, wherein the transmission wavelength band of the excitation-side filter is a band which causes light rays having main wavelengths of the single-wavelength excitation light source to be transmitted, and wherein the absorption filter constituting the emission-side filter section has a low transmittance of 10% or less in the wavelength band of the main wavelengths of the single-wavelength excitation light source.