A confocal microscope is a type of optical microscope that uses a pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light and enhance the image quality. It can also be combined with fluorescence microscopy, a technique that uses fluorescent molecules to label and visualise specific structures or molecules in a sample. By using a fluorescence detector, a confocal microscope can record the emitted fluorescence from the sample, which provides more contrast and specificity in the images. A confocal microscope records point-by-point scans of a sample to create two-dimensional images. Three-dimensional images can be created by combining the images of multiple planes, taken by repeating the scanning technique but varying the z-axis.