Confocal microscope
Microscopio confocal
- Date
- 1955-1957 · confidence high
- Place
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- Credited to
- Marvin Minsky
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A microscope that illuminates a single point and rejects out-of-focus light with a pinhole, to obtain sharp optical sections of thick samples. Minsky conceived it in 1955 and patented it in 1957.
Petráň (Plzeň, 1967) built a Nipkow-disc confocal microscope; the technique became popular only in the 1980s with lasers and computers.
What it led to
- laser scanning microscopy in biology
- 3D reconstruction of cells and tissues
- high-resolution fluorescence microscopy