Optically sectioned imaging by oblique plane microscopy.

This paper describes a new optically sectioning microscopy technique based on oblique selective plane illumination combined with oblique imaging. This method differs from previous selective plane illumination techniques as the same high numerical aperture lens is used to both illuminate and image the specimen. Initial results obtained using fluorescent pollen grains are presented, together with a measurement of the resolution of the system and an analysis of the potential performance of future systems. Since only the plane of the specimen that is being imaged is illuminated, this technique is particularly suited to time-lapse 3-D imaging of sensitive biological systems where photobleaching and phototoxicity must be kept to a minimum, and it could also be applied to image microfluidic technology for lab-on-a-chip, cytometry and other applications.