Scanning microscopy with spatial sampling of the detector plane

We present the implementation of a confocal scanning microscope in which the signal detection is performed through a matrix sensor, specifically, a CCD camera. This kind of detection has several advantages over the conventional detection in confocal microscopes. One of those advantages is the possibility to recover information of the sample that vanishes when the confocal image is directly acquired by the integration of light into a signal. We demonstrate the applicability of the system which allows implementing super-resolution techniques in a very easy manner.© Sociedad Española de Óptica