Application of Scan-less Two-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy Based on a Combination of Confocal Slit With Wavelength/Space Conversion

Confocal laser microscope (CLM) has been widely used in the fields of non-contact surface topography, biomedical imaging, and other applications, as confocality gives two-dimensional (2-D) optical-sectioning or three-dimensional (3-D) imaging capability with depth selectivity. The combination of line-focused CLM with one-dimensional spectral encoding CLM enables us to obtain the 2-D confocal image without the need for mechanical scanning. The so-called scan-less 2-D CLM is a unique imaging modality; however, there have been no attempts to apply this to practical applications. In this paper, we have constructed a scan-less 2-D CLM with an image acquisition time of 0.23 ms, lateral resolution of 1.2 μm, depth resolution of 2.4 μm, and have applied it to different kinds of applications to evaluate its practical potential.