Microlaser microscope

The microlaser microscope (Webb, 1990) is a laser scanning confocal microscope that will someday be entirely on a single semiconductor chip. The heart of the device is an array of vcsels-vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. When available we will use a 1024×1024 array as the source for a scanning laser imaging system, and we will use this same array as the detector point-by-point conjugate to the source and its projection on the object. The present reality is that we have much smaller arrays available, but we are able to demonstrate the principle in its entirety with these. The eventual goal of this work is to develop a confocal microscope that is tiny enough to move with living patients, (at their bedsides?) so that a true optical “biopsy” can be anticipated. We often need to look at tissue at the cellular level for diagnostic purposes, but at present we need to cut it out of the patient first. The power of confocal microscopy is that it can observe cells in a thick sample at depths of some 10ths of microns from a surface. By using a video rate device we are able to allow for patient motion. By making the device tiny, we permit attachment to the patient or insertion into the patient. Experience with retina and skin leads us to anticipate that this microlaser microscope, when we can use the full arrays that will eventually appear, will provide fast, safe “biopsies” without surgery