Notizie

Nikon Instruments today announced the next generation of confocal microscopy, the Nikon LiveScan Swept Field Confocal Microscope (SFC). This new laser confocal microscope enables dynamic live cell confocal imaging. Its revolutionary new optical design is used in point scan mode for high resolution data acquisition at frame rates exceeding 200 frames/sec, and in slit scan mode at acquisition frequencies exceeding 1500 frames/sec, while minimizing specimen exposure to damaging illumination energy.

For cell biologists and neurophysiologists, Nikon's LiveScan SFC microscope can monitor and record rapidly occurring events in msec time resolution within living cells without compromising spatial resolution, while simultaneously controlling high frequency, low intensity illumination which substantially reduces photobleaching and phototoxicity.

The unique scan head combines tandem scanning technology with galvanometer and piezo controlled scanning mirrors. The illuminating photons are focused through a row of 32 stationary pinholes over the specimen so each point in the specimen is illuminated 300 times/sec. The emission photons are descanned and focused through a complementary row of pinholes on the image side, and from there onto the face of a high sensitivity CCD camera. Because the pinholes are stationary, the plate containing them can contain 4 rows of pinholes, with the pinhole size for each row selected to maximize both axial and lateral resolution for all of the most commonly used objective lenses for confocal microscopy.

The plate also contains two different size slits that allow data acquisition at the fastest frame rate of any commercial confocal microscope. This feature means users can trade back and forth between scanning apertures to obtain the most advantageous balance between speed, resolution, and sensitivity for each experiment.

The LiveScan Swept Field Confocal Microscope takes advantage of up to six Acousto Optical Tunable Filter (AOTF) modulated laser lines for single or multi-channel sequential data acquisition. The laser table is equipped with a switchable dual fiber output so the same lasers can be used additional optical techniques including FRAP and TIRF.

"The Nikon SFC microscope features the industry's best light sensitivity and highest frame rate on the market today," said Stan Schwartz., marketing vice president, Nikon Instruments, "We expect the maximum scan to be substantially higher than any existing system. It's also faster, and more versatile and accurate than a spinning disk."

The Nikon SFC microscope's compact modular design is simple to use and easy to maintain. This modular design makes easy and economical upgrades to the system possible as the user's needs change.