IMAGING APPARATUS AND IMAGING METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable respective point states in the whole plane to be acquired simultaneously in parallel without allowing any time lag to occur, in order to carry out a rapid test without the need for any additional step of tagging a specimen with a molecule, in an imaging process to measure the specimen such as a biological material or the like. SOLUTION: An imaging apparatus (10) and an imaging method are provided, which use a change in a polarization state of a light beam (20) passing through a total internal reflection structure (14) by a single reflection at a TIR surface (39) in which the specimen being the subject of biological, chemical or genetic investigation, is placed in the evanescent field associated with the total internal reflection of the light beam. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT