Arrangement of a light diffracting element for the separation of excitation light and emission light in a microscope beam path, preferably in a confocal microscope and in particular in a laser scanning microscope, wherein the light diffracting element is traversed both by the excitation light and the emission light and at least one excitation wavelength is influenced by diffraction, whereas other wavelengths emitted by the sample traverse the element in uninfluenced form and consequently are separated spatially from the excitation light.