Andor Technology acquires Photonic Instruments

Andor Technology Plc, a company that provides scientific imaging, spectroscopy and microscopy systems, has acquired Photonic Instruments Inc. of Saint Charles, Ill. Photonic Instruments develops, manufactures and supplies laser and lamp based illumination and ablation systems. Its Micropoint and Mosaic products are are used for fluorescence imaging and laser ablation for confocal and wide field microscopy.

Photonic’s MicroPoint system is based on traditional galvo based scanning illumination and enables the user to graphically or numerically define and edit the shape and characteristics of the illumination at the target in microscopes. MOSAIC uses micro mirror technologies to provide simultaneous and precise illumination and ablation of multiple regions of interest. The existing management and founders will remain with the business following completion.

More information here.

White light confocal microscope

Andor Technology introduced the Revolution DSD confocal system at the Biophysical Society 54th Annual Meeting. It is based on a differential spinning disk optical system that works with the company’s Clara interline CCD camera and is controlled by an IQ work station.

The microscopy system connects to any microscope’s side port and uses white light instead of lasers, which lowers the cost. Active background subtraction delivers high contrast, low background images. The spinning disk can be used at 50% transmission for high-sectioning mode or 25% transmission for high-contrast mode.

Excitation ranges from 340 to 800 nm, and filters allow the excitation of UV, visible, and NIR optical probes. The user can easily switch wavelengths or between wide field and confocal imaging. Operating with objective magnifications from 10 to 100X makes the system suitable for live cell, tissue and whole embryo applications.

More information here.

Is the sCMOS too good to be true?

While the sCMOS technology from Andor, Fairchild, and PCO  may seem too good to be true, it actually isn’t. That's because the advance fits right into the progression of sensor technology in recent years.

There’s a lot of good information on the factors driving the CCD vs. CMOS market at this link.  The short and simple version of recent sensor history is that CMOS performance has generally been worse than CCDs and thus wasn’t heavily used in challenging scientific imaging. CMOS has slowly (more quickly in recent years) creeped up in quality, and in fact, several have entered the life sciences market in the last three years. However, most have had trouble with noise and thus aren’t as sensitive as CCDs.

It seems like these three companies put their heads together to give CMOS that one last push in performance, which was needed to make it a truly usable alternative to CCDs in the highly demand world of scientific imaging. In my time working in this industry I have never heard of three companies working together in this way, and I think it is great that they pushed this technology ahead.

Those of you that aren’t really sure what’s on the inside of your microscope’s camera might be asking why these companies would work together on something like this. The collaboration makes sense because cameras from different companies often (but not always) use exactly the same imaging chips inside. Each company optimizes the camera’s cooling, software, and data connections to the specifications they think are most important for the applications the camera is targeting.

The new sCMOS will compete with one of the more recent image sensor developments – the hybrid CCD/CMOS. This technology was introduced in the last few years and is designed to overcome the drawbacks of each type of sensor. The collaborating companies say that the new CMOS technology is less complex and less expensive to manufacturer that the hybrid sensors. I haven’t seen the hybrid technology widely available in actual cameras yet.

Since the white paper gives detailed analysis of the sCMOS with EMCCD and interline CCD cameras, here’s a look at how the specs for the new CMOS lined up with a current CMOS cameras on the market.

I’m not sure if the PCO 1200 hs CMOS camera is the best CMOS camera out today, but I know it is finding some life science applications. Some of its highlights are 1280 X 1024 resolution, 12.0 X 12.0 um2 pixel size, 85 e- rms, 27 % peak quantum efficiency. To compare the new sCMOS has 2560(h) x 2160(v) resolution, 6.5 μm pixel size, <>

It’s always exciting to see a new technology like this, especially one that is driven by the scientific market when so often other markets drive image sensor technology. We won’t know the true implications of this new technology until the cameras using it come out next year.

Read the original post on sCMOS here.

More information on this technology at www.scmos.com.

New CMOS technology for scientific applications

Andor Technology of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Fairchild Imaging of Milpitas, California, USA, and PCO AG of Kelheim, Germany have been working together on a brand new CMOS technology. They introduced the technology by presenting a white paper on the technology at the Laser World of Photonics in Munich on June 16.

According to the companies, the new technology--called scientific CMOS (sCMOS)--will benefit many microscopy applications such as live-cell, super-resolution, and spinning-disk confocal microscopy as well as TIRF, FRAP, FRET, and single molecule detection.

The technology looks to be a significant advancement for biological imaging because it overcomes some of the drawbacks of many sensor technologies, including interline CCDs and electron multiplying (EM) CCDs, which are often used in demanding microscopy applications. sCMOS can simultaneously provide low noise, rapid frame rates, wide dynamic range, high quantum efficiency (QE), high resolution, and a large field of view. 

Here are the numbers for the first sCMOS sensor:

• Sensor format: 5.5 megapixels (2560(h) x 2160(v))
  
• Read noise: <> 16,000:1 (@ 30 frames/s)
  
• QEmax.: 60%
  
• Read out modes: Rolling and Global shutter (user selectable)
  

The white paper provides data and images comparing the sCMOS technology with EM and Interline CCDs. All three companies plan to have cameras using the new technology in 2010, some as early as first quarter.

Get more information on the sensor technology and the white paper at www.scmos.com.

More on this development in the blog post: Is the sCMOS too good to be true? 

Microscopy events June-Sept

Andor Webinar
June 25
This 60 minute interactive webinar will be delivered by Dr. Mark Browne, Andor’s Director of Systems. It will focus on the company’s new Clara CCD camera, the UVP-350i laser platform for pulsed UV uncaging and ablation, and Differential Spinning Disk technology for white light confocal imaging.
More information here.

Principles of Fluorescence Techniques
June 29 - July 2, Genova, Italy
Sept 14-17, Madrid, Spain
Theoretical lectures will be complemented by the chance to use steady state and lifetime fluorescence instruments and confocal microscopes for FLIM and FRET applications. Topics will include:
• Basic Definitions and Principles of Fluorescence
• Fluorescence Polarization
• Time-resolved Fluorescence
• Instrumentation
• Data Manipulation and Data Analysis
• Non-Linear Microscopy Including SHG
• GFP Fluorescence and Photoactivation
• Confocal and Multiphoton Fluorescence Microscopy
• FCS, Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy
• FLIM, Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging
• Single Molecule Imaging
• Image Processing and Deconvolution Approaches
More information on Genova course here.
More information on Madrid course here.

Taiwan Bioworkshop
National Taiwan University (NTU)
July 30-31
In conjunction with the NTU National Health Institute in Taiwan, Asylum Research presents the first Taiwan Bioworkshop. The free workshop will feature AFM lectures and a hands-on workshop. Topics include:
• Principles of AFM
• High resolution molecular imaging
• Cell imaging
• Force measurements
• Combined AFM and optical imaging
More information here.

These events are now added to the microscopy news google calendar here. 

Focus on Microscopy conference brings new cameras

The Focus on Microscopy conference began yesterday in Krakow, Poland, and with it came some new product launches. QImaging and Andor Technology both introduced interline CCD cameras based on Sony’s ICX285 sensor today.

The Andor product is called the “Clara” interline CCD camera. The camera is useful for following dynamic events with quantitative stability. The company says the camera’s release is in response to customer desire for it to provide a high performance interline CCD camera. Key specifications:
• 1.3 Megapixel sensor
• Cooled to -45°C
• read noise floor of 3e- rms.
• 16-bit & 14-bit digitization
• 10 or 20 MHz readout modes
• USB 2.0 interface

The EXi Blue from QImaging also uses Sony’s ICX285 sensor. This camera is optimized for applications such as live-cell fluorescence and high-speed kinetic studies. Key specifications:
• 1392 X 1040 light-sensitive pixels
• Cooled to 0 °C.
• 10, 20, 30 MHz readout frequency.
• 8-bit &14-bit digitization
• IEEE 1394b (Firewire) interface
• Read-out of up to 15 full-resolution fps
• variable exposure times from 10 ms to 17.9 min.

QImaging also released a version of its Retiga-SRV CCD Camera that is cooled to -45° C. This camera is optimized for low-light, high-speed, high-sensitivity applications. A three-stage Peltier device and an all-metal, hermetic-vacuum-sealed CCD chamber provides the deep cooling, which can be controlled in single-degree increments via software. The camrea features a 1.4-megapixel CCD, 12-bit digital output, an IEEE 1394b (Firewire) interface, and a display that provides camera settings.

More information:

"Clara" interline CCD camera

EXi Blue

Retiga-SRV

Less embryo phototoxicity with spinning disk/EMCCD microscopy setup

Electron multiplying (EM) CCD cameras have helped spinning disk confocal microscopy find more use because the cameras are sensitive enough to detect the low levels of light produced by the microscopy method. For living specimens, this type of microscopy brings the benefits of reducing phototoxicity during the repeated exposures used to acquire time-lapse images or z-axis slices.

Researchers at RIKEN-Kobe in Japan recently used this win-win technology pairing to image mouse embryos. They published a paper in the Journal of Reproduction and Development describing how their methods decreased phototoxicity so much that preimplantation mouse embryos could undergo long-term time-lapse imaging, be implanted, and then survive full-term.

They used an Olympus inverted microscope with a Nipkow disk confocal module and an Andor EMCCD camera. A CVI Melles Griot 70 mW agron-krypton laser provided the confocal light source. The mouse embryos were injected with a mixture of mRNAs encoding for enhanced GFP coupled to alpha-tublin and monomeric RFP fused to histone H2B. At specific time points, the researchers acquired 51 images in the z-axis with 488 and 561 nm excitation. Imaging took place for 70 hours.

Although the setup lessened light exposure, the researchers found that the interval between observations was another important factor -- an interval of 7.5 min. increased embryo viability greatly over 3.75 minutes. They also found that continuous light exposure was worse than repeated intermittent excitation, even when the total exposure was equal.

This microscopy method could aid study of development and assistive reproductive techniques in mammals. For example, it could help reveal why some assistive reproductive techniques (such as in vitro fertilization) work better than others, and it might be used to identify healthy embryos prior to implantation.

In the paper, the researchers pointed out that the mechanisms behind phototoxicity are still not completely understood and that their findings regarding phototoxicity imply that embryos may be able to neutralize toxicity. To find out more about this topic, I am going to compile some of the latest research on photoxicity.

Are you performing research in the area of phototoxicity, or do you know of a good resource?

Image: These time-lapse images show spindle (green) and nuclear (red) dynamics during preimplantation embryo development. Courtesy of Kazuo Yamagata, RIKEN-Kobe.

Note: If you want to know more about EMCCDs, Photometrics is holding webinar covering this topic on Friday April 3: http://tinyurl.com/cwarev.