An apparatus and method in which illumination light and collected emitted light share a pathway and subsequently are physically separated. The optical configuration is designed such that at the point of separation, the illumination light is at has a smaller cross sectional area than the collected light. Collected light is directed away from the pathway of the illumination light and to detection optics. This configuration is adaptable to illumination and light collection across a broad wavelength spectrum. This configuration is adaptable to scanning in a limited depth of field to allow high throughput optical analysis of samples.