Microscopy systems are often limited by their depth of focus. Manual refocusing is time consuming and, of course, is impractical for an automatic microscopy system. Thermal drift and the exchange of magnification of the lenses causes additional problems for the focus, so that each time a refocusing process has to be done manually.

With the use of an autofocus system, a certain focus point can be quickly acquired and automatically readjusted with long term stability. Autofocus technology is becoming more and more common in the fields of surface roughness inspection and quality control in processes for printed circuit technology and laser beam welding. More and more they are also used in the field of laser beam scribing and, of course, in microbiological research.

High quality autofocus systems are time saving and they can improve the quality and speed of image acquisition enormously.

In the field of microbiological analysis or in the field of super resolution microscopy, the motorized autofocus system needs to be supported by a high resolution piezo driven positioning unit which is able to reach accuracies in the sub micrometer range.