The White Confocal – Spectral Gaps Closed

This article summarizes the development and differences in design and functionality of confocal technology as far as spectral properties are concerned:from classical filter-based excitation and emission color selection to fully flexible spectral excitation and emission tuning without planoptical elements (“filter-free”). All three major components: light source with excitation color selection, beam splitting for incident illumination and detector emission filtering have been completely transformed. The White Confocal is an ingenious composition of a white emitting laser source, acousto-optical spectral routers, an efficient spectral dispersor, tunable and loss-free band selectors and high performance gatable hybrid sensors.