一種新型激光顯微鏡能夠提供動態活細胞共聚焦成像。使用點掃描模式，能夠以200幀/秒的速度獲得高清晰度影像；使用裂隙掃瞄模式，圖像獲取頻率則超過了1500幀/秒；同時將標本暴露于有損傷作用照明能量的可能減為最小。

這種SFC(掃頻視野共聚焦)顯微鏡能夠監測與記錄活細胞水平毫秒時間內快速發生的事件，而不會降低空間清晰度；同時通過對高頻、低強度照明的控制，減少光子褪色以及光子毒性作用對標本的影響。

掃描頭包含了縱列掃描技術、電流計以及壓電控制掃描鏡。照明光子通過一行固定的32個小孔聚焦在標本上，對標本的照明每點是300次/秒。發射光子二次掃描，通過附加的一行小孔聚焦于成像面，從那里再發射到敏感度極高的電荷耦合器件(CCD)相機。因為這小孔是固定的，包含這些小孔的托盤能夠包含4行小孔，可以根據所有共聚焦顯微鏡最常用物鏡的軸向與橫向最大清晰度來選擇每行小孔的大小。

這種LiveScan顯微鏡是由尼康公司(Yokohama, Japan)研制成功的。尼康設備公司市場部副總裁Stan Schwartz說：“我們希望這種產品的最高掃描性能完全高于任何現在使用的系統，而且更加快速，比渦流盤用途更加廣泛更加精確。”

New Swept Field Confocal Microscope
 
A new laser microscope offers dynamic live-cell confocal imaging and can be used in point-scan mode for high resolution data acquisition at frame rates exceeding 200 frames/sec, and in slit-scan mode at acquisition frequencies exceeding 1,500 frames/sec, while minimizing specimen exposure to damaging illumination energy.

The SFC (swept field confocal) microscope can monitor and record rapidly occurring events in msec time resolution within living cells without compromising spatial resolution, while simultaneously controlling high frequency, low intensity illumination, which reduces photobleaching and phototoxicity.

The scan head combines tandem scanning technology with galvanometer and piezo-controlled scanning mirrors. The illuminating photons are focused through a row of 32 stationary pinholes over the specimen so each point in the specimen is illuminated 300 times/sec. The emission photons are de-scanned and focused through a complementary row of pinholes on the image side, and from there onto the face of a high-sensitivity charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. Because the pinholes are stationary, the plate containing them can contain four rows of pinholes, with the pinhole size for each row selected to maximize both axial and lateral resolution for all of the most commonly used objective lenses for confocal microscopy.

This LiveScan microscope was developed by Nikon Instruments (Yokohama, Japan). “We expect the maximum scan to be substantially higher than any existing system,” commented Stan Schwartz, marketing vice president, Nikon Instruments. “It’s also faster, and more versatile and accurate than a spinning disk.”