Fiber-optic confocal microscope: FOCON.

A new design for a reflecting fiber-optic confocal microscope, FOCON, is presented in which the beam splitter of a conventional confocal microscope is replaced by a fiber-optic splitter, and the core of a single-mode fiber takes the place of both the source and detector pinholes. It is shown that FOCON has the same resolution characteristics as a conventional confocal microscope, and requires fewer optical components and only rough alignment. The microscope is robust and can be rapidly scanned in the x, y, and z directions through the simple movement of the end of an optical fiber.