Abstract
Despite the popular employment of objective lenses as focusing devices, parabolic mirror (PM) is intensively used in quite different scopes of science. For instances, mirrors with a small numerical aperture (NA) are normally used in astronomic telescopes and in telecommunications. Some groups also use high NA PMs in single molecule optics as efficient light collecting element [1-5]. In principle PMs are the perfect focusing elements: a parallel incoming beam along the optical axis of the PM can be focused to one point without any aberration. Furthermore by choosing proper deflecting coating material, PM is free from chromatic aberrations and can be used over wide optical frequencies. Nevertheless they are seldom used in imaging applications because of their bad off-axis properties. A small deviation from parallelism of the incoming beam or from the optical axis leads to tremendous aberrations and results in a small field of view. In confocal microscopy the sample is imaged point by point and thus is the perfect optical arrangement for a PM. Especially when combined with a scanning stage, so that the mirror stays perfect aligned with respect to the incident beam. Based on our experiences in the last years, we will demonstrate the integration of a PM in confocal and super resolution optical imaging systems. Applications in single molecule and particle imaging, as well as Raman scattering mapping of molecular monolayer will be shown.
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