| CPC G02B 27/0927 (2013.01) [G01N 21/6428 (2013.01); G01N 21/6456 (2013.01); G02B 26/101 (2013.01); G02B 27/0916 (2013.01); G02B 27/0955 (2013.01); G02B 27/0994 (2013.01); G01N 2021/6439 (2013.01)] | 26 Claims |

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1. An apparatus, comprising:
a beam source for providing input radiation;
a beam shaping group comprising one or more optical elements positioned to receive the input radiation from the beam source and to generate a beam having a long axis, and a short axis perpendicular to the long axis, and wherein the one or more optical elements comprises a modifier configured to perform beam shaping on the input radiation to broaden the beam in a direction along the short axis to form a shaped beam;
an objective positioned to receive the shaped beam and to transform the shaped beam into a probe beam, the objective further configured to provide the probe beam to a focal plane of the objective for optically probing a sample,
wherein the beam shaping group is configured to adjust one or more properties of the shaped beam over time to generally uniformly heat the objective over a region of incidence for the shaped beam.
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