This feature, together with a rather complex history (Santi, 2011), has unfortunately led to a proliferation of names and acronyms--light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM), selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), digital scanned light sheet microscopy (DSLM), orthogonal-plane fluorescence optical sectioning (
OPFOS), and more; all refer to essentially the same combination of sheet illumination and perpendicular detection.