Patent ID: 7358478

Claim:
An imaging system, comprising: a light source to produce at least one beam; focus differentiation optics located in an optical pathway of the at least one beam to divide the at least one beam into a plurality of sub-beams aimed at different locations away from the focus differentiation optics; microscope optics to focus the plurality of sub-beams at respective focal planes at the different locations, respectively; a sample holder to hold a sample to occupy a sample volume that overlaps at least some of the different locations of the respective focal planes; and a plurality of detector assemblies positioned to receive the light from at least some of the different locations, wherein the focus differentiation optics comprises a plurality of sub-beam definition modules, each sub-beam definition module has a first side and a corresponding second side, the first side being substantially parallel to the corresponding second side, and wherein the distance between the first side and the corresponding second side of each sub-beam definition module is different from one another.