In recent years confocal microscopy has been adapted into numerous fields - such as cell biology, life sciences, semiconductor inspection, materials science, neuroanatomy, and neurophysiology. Key applications areas include: Stem cell research, Photobleaching studies, Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), Fluorescence recovery after photo-bleaching, Fluorescence in-situ hybridization, Lifetime imaging, Multiphoton microscopy, Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM), DNA hybridization, Membrane and ion probes, Bioluminescent proteins, Epitope tagging etc.