Patent ID: 7038848

Claim:
A confocal microscope comprising: a light source which emits a polarized light beam; an optical scanner which deflects and scans the polarized light beam; an objective lens which irradiates the polarized light beam, which is deflected and scanned by the optical scanner, to a sample as an excitation light beam that excites the sample so as to cause the sample to emit a polarized fluorescence; a wavelength separator which separates a necessary wavelength band from the polarized fluorescence emitted from the sample; and two photodetector units, each of which comprises: a polarization property extractor which extracts a fluorescence with a predetermined polarization property from the fluorescence separated with the wavelength separator; a wavelength selector which selects a wavelength of the fluorescence extracted by the polarization property extractor; and a photodetector which detects the fluorescence selected by the wavelength selector; wherein the two photodetector units respectively detect an s-polarized component and a p-polarized component of the fluorescence emitted from the sample; and a calculator which calculates a rotation relaxation time and a fluorescence life based on a change of a fluorescence intensity of the s-polarized component and the p-polarized component respectively detected by the two photodetector units over time.