Abstract: The invention relates to a spot generator (10) having: —an entrysurface (12) for receiving an incident light beam (20) and an exit surface (14) for (22, 24) transmitting the light beam, the entry surface defining an entryside (16) and the exit surface defining an exit side (18). According to the invention, the spot generator is designed to modulate the incident light beam to generate on the exit side a first plurality (22) and a second plurality (24) of separate light spots, each light spot belonging to the first plurality having a first angular spectrum and each light spot belonging to the second plurality having a second angular spectrum different than the first angular spectrum. Advantageously, the spot generator comprises a periodic binary phase structure. The invention further relates to a multi-spot scanning microscope and to a method of imaging a microscopic sample.