A fluorescence microscopy technique that obtains higher resolution images of very small objects than conventional optical microscopy. Rather than flooding the entire specimen evenly with light, which causes simultaneous excitation of all parts and results in a large out-of focus background part captured by the microscope's photodetector, confocal microscopy uses a condenser lens to focus the light from a pin-hole onto a very small spot on the plane of the specimen. An optical system rapidly scans the object in synchrony with the illumination. The reflected and emitted rays entering the collector lens are focused onto a plate which generates a signal that forms a display of the image.
