Review and expectation of non-coaxial laser confocal microscopy

Non-coaxial laser confocal microscopy is a novel imaging method of laser confocal microscopy. By observing the sample at an angle to the illumination axis, this method decreases the observation volume of overlap and then improves the axial resolution. Compared with the conventional confocal microscopy, this method has gained wide attention for its advantage that it can improve the resolution, working distance and field of view simultaneously. We summarize the key principle of the non-coaxial laser confocal microscopy, and expand the recent progress and development trend of two typical non-coaxial laser confocal microscopies, confocal theta microscopy and dual-axes confocal microscopy. Finally we briefly introduce our researching plan.