When most biomedical researchers think “confocal microscopy”, they usually have fluorescence imaging in mind. There is a very good reason for this connection. Many biomedical applications of the confocal microscope have utilized its optical sectioning power, combined with the exquisite specificity of immunofluorescence or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to produce improved images of m...

Colloids have increasingly been used to characterize or mimic many aspects of atomic and molecular systems. With confocal microscopy these colloidal particles can be tracked spatially in three dimensions with great precision over large time scales. This review discusses equilibrium phases such as crystals and liquids, and non-equilibrium phases such as glasses and gels. The phases that form dep...