An excitation filter is a high quality optical-glass filter commonly used in
fluorescence microscopy
A fluorescence microscope is an optical microscope that uses fluorescence instead of, or in addition to, scattering, reflection, and attenuation or absorption, to study the properties of organic or inorganic substances. "Fluorescence microsc ...
and
spectroscopic
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wav ...
applications for selection of the excitation wavelength of light from a light source. Most excitation filters select light of relatively short wavelengths from an excitation light source, as only those wavelengths would carry enough energy to cause the object the microscope is examining to fluoresce sufficiently. The excitation filters used may come in two main types — short pass filters and band pass filters.
Variations of these filters exist in the form of notch filters or deep blocking filters (commonly employed as
emission filters
Emission may refer to:
Chemical products
* Emission of air pollutants, notably:
**Flue gas, gas exiting to the atmosphere via a flue
** Exhaust gas, flue gas generated by fuel combustion
** Emission of greenhouse gases, which absorb and emit rad ...
). Other forms of excitation filters include the use of monochromators, wedge prisms coupled with a narrow slit (for selection of the excitation light) and the use of holographic diffraction gratings, etc.
or beam diffraction of white laser light into the required excitation wavelength (selected for by a narrow slit)
An excitation filter is commonly packaged with an emission filter and a dichroic beam splitter in a cube so that the group is inserted together into the microscope. The dichroic beam splitter controls which wavelengths of light go to their respective filter.
References
Optical filters
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