| abstract |
A high-speed fluorescence scanner for scanning a sample at equal angles has most of its optical components, including a light beam source (11), a detector (19), filters (18), lenses (17), and reflectors (15-16), in a fixed position (24), removed from the scan head (22). The lightweight scan head contains a single reflector (13) and lens (12) combination which is reciprocated rapidly along one axis to lengthen and shorten a region of the path of a collimated excitation beam (30) and to form a scan line (25-26) on a sample. The fluorescence emission is gathered by the lens (12) of the scan head and directed back, generally along the optical path of the excitation beam, to a detector. Another embodiment places the light source (43), in miniature form, directly on the scan head. The sample may be translated in an axis orthogonal to the scan line to stimulate fluorescent emission from two-dimensional portion of the sample. |