Scientific CMOS camera for fast low-light imaging

Hamamatsu has introduced the ORCA-Flash2.8 camera. It is the company's first high-sensitivity digital camera based on a next-generation scientific CMOS image sensor. Designed for low-light imaging at high frame rates, the camera combines high resolution, high sensitivity, high speed, and low noise at an affordable price

The camera's new scientific CMOS image sensor, the FL-280, has 2.8 megapixels and a pixel size of 3.63 x 3.63 µm, ensuring high resolution. The sensor’s wavelength sensitivity ranges from UV to visible, with peak sensitivity (over 60% QE) at about 450-500 nm. The sensor features low readout noise, typically 3 electrons r.m.s. The sensor’s design keeps the readout noise minimal even at very fast readout speeds, unlike traditional image sensors. The FL-280 sensor also has low dark current. Because of its intrinsically low dark current, the sensor requires cooling to +5°C only.

Built for high-speed imaging, the camera's readout speed ranges from 45 frames/second at full resolution up to 1273 frames/second with sub-array readout. Other features include external trigger functions, real-time corrections, and analog gain. It is suitable for a wide variety of applications including ratio imaging, FRET, FISH, TIRF microscopy, and real-time confocal microscopy. The camera will be shown at Analytica 2010 in Munich, Germany, from March 23 to March 26. Demo cameras will be available in May 2010.

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? 

New CMOS camera and workflow software

Capture color
If you’re looking for versatile yet affordable color camera, you might try the  Olympus SC30 microscopy camera that was recently introduced in Europe. Suitable for material and life science applications, it has a native resolution of 2048 x 1532 pixels, uses a 3.3 megapixel CMOS chip, features exposure times that can be adjusted from 57 µs to 1.75 s, and has binning modes of 2x, 3x, and 4x. It can be used for live cell imaging, standard bright field applications, and for digital documentation. With 4x binning, it can capture 49 fps at resolution of 508 x 384 pixels. More info here. 

Get more done
Macnification digital electron microscopy shareware for the Mac could increase your productivity. It helps users organize, find, annotate, analyze, adjust, compare, and publish microscopic images. All major image file formats can be imported, and measurement results can be exported to spreadsheet applications. Requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. More info here.