Patent ID: 8248614

Claim:
An optical system that performs imaging in a transmissive and reflective mode comprising: an optical interferometer configured to generate an interference phenomena between optical waves to measure a plurality of distances, a plurality of thicknesses, and a plurality of indices of refraction of a sample; an excitation-emission device in which an electromagnetic excitation and emission pass through an objective in optical communication with the sample; and an electromagnetic detector configured to receive an output of the optical interferometer and the excitation-emission device to render a magnified image of at least a portion of the sample; where the optical interferometer includes a closed loop galvanometer that scans a pre-programmed angular arc to render a three-dimensional view of the portion of the sample; where the optical interferometer comprises a coupler with an input, an object beam output, and a reference beam output; and where the closed loop galvanometer is coupled between the object beam output of the coupler and the objective.