| abstract |
A wide field microscope includes a stage configured to hold a specimen having a fluorescent material therein, and a multi-photon excitation light source configured to produce excitation light having a single photon energy less than an absorption energy required for single photon excitation of said fluorescent material. A beam expansion unit is optically coupled to the light source and configured to expand the excitation light with reduced pulse spreading characteristics, and an infinity corrected objective optically coupled to the expansion unit and configured to focus the excitation light onto the specimen such that multi-photon excitation of the fluorescent material simultaneously occurs over a predetermined area of the specimen. A focus lens is configured to focus emission light emitted from said predetermined area of the specimen onto at least two pixels of an image detector simultaneously. |