scanning microscope on the market which was upgraded to a confocal. A report from 1990, mentioned some manufacturers of confocals: Sarastro, Technical Instrument, Meridian Instruments, Bio-Rad, Leica, Tracor-Northern and Zeiss. In 1989, Fritz Karl Preikschat, with his son Ekhard Preikschat, invented the scanning laser diode microscope for particle-size analysis. and co-founded Lasentec to commercialize it. In 2001, Lasentec was acquired by Mettler Toledo. They are used mostly in the pharmaceutical industry to provide in-situ control of the crystallization process in large purification systems. See also Charge modulation spectroscopy Deconvolution Fluorescence microscope Focused ion beam Focus stacking Laser scanning confocal microscopy Live cell imaging Microscope objective lens Microscope slide Optical microscope Optical sectioning Photodetector Point spread function Stimulated emission depletion microscope Super-resolution microscopy Total internal reflection fluorescence microscope (TIRF) Two-photon excitation microscopy: Although they use a related technology (both are laser scanning microscopes), multiphoton fluorescence microscopes are not strictly confocal microscopes. The term confocal arises from the presence of a diaphragm in the conjugated focal plane (confocal). This diaphragm is usually absent in multiphoton microscopes. References External links Virtual CLSM (Java-based) Animations and explanations on various types of microscopes including fluorescent and confocal microscopes (Université Paris Sud) Parts need to know. Microscopy American inventions Cell imaging Scientific techniques Laboratory equipment Optical microscopy techniques Fluorescence techniques