Fluorescence microscopy is a powerful tool in life science, for example enabling to monitor adhesion of bacterial layers to materials and investigating the underlying molecular mechanisms. However, such investigations often require deep penetration into samples, leading to deteriorated microscopy data due to optical aberrations. A remedy is adaptive optics. Here active optical elements such as deformable mirrors (DMs) and spatial light modulators (SLMs) are employed to dynamically

correct for aberrations. I will present the basic idea of such adaptive elements into a confocal and super-resolution microscope and introduce its performance.

Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 444711651, RTG 2723 Materials-Microbes-Microenvironments (M-M-M).