Figure 3.

Confocal optical pathways. An illumination and a detection pinhole are placed in the optical pathway. The detection pinhole – the mask – is placed in front of the detector at a plane that is conjugate to the in-focus or "j" plane, such that the illumination spot and the pinhole aperture are simultaneously focused at the same specimen volume. This coincidence of the illumination and detected volume is responsible for confocality. The illumination pinhole allows to perform pointlike scanning.