Related: Two-photon microscope
A galvoscanner forms the heart of a two-photon microscope - it is used to deflect the beam. A galvoscanners are a modern use case of the good old galvanometer mechanism which allows the angular location of the needle/mirror be linearly controlled based on current.1
Two-photon microscopes use two types of galvoscanners:
- closed-loop galvoscanners (generally called galvos or galvoscanners)
- resonant galvoscanners
Typically, two galvoscanners are placed to control the beam in X-Y directions, allowing the laser dot to be moved around on a plane.
(Todo: Add drawing of this)
Footnotes
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How a galvanometer achieves linear angle with current is very cool! For a refresher, this khanacademy video explains the working mechanism very well. ↩