title: Tunable Optical Sectioning in Confocal Microscopy by use of Symmetrical Defocusing and Apodization.
abstract: We present two novel optical methods to achieve a significative improvement in the optical-sectioning capacity of confocal scanning microscopes. The techniques, whose real power is the simplicity with which they can be implemented, consist of a suitable combination of symmetrical defocusing with two different manners of apodizing both parts of the confocal architecture. It is shown that the proposed techniques are useful in both the bright-field and the fluorescence modes and for reflection and transmission geometries.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Martínez-Corral
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kowalczyk
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Zapata-Rodríguez
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Andrés