New Swept Field Confocal Microscope
 
A new laser microscope offers dynamic live-cell confocal imaging and can be 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 1,500 frames/sec, while minimizing specimen exposure to damaging illumination energy.

The SFC (swept field confocal) 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 reduces photobleaching and phototoxicity.

The 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 de-scanned and focused through a complementary row of pinholes on the image side, and from there onto the face of a high-sensitivity charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. Because the pinholes are stationary, the plate containing them can contain four 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.

This LiveScan microscope was developed by Nikon Instruments (Yokohama, Japan). “We expect the maximum scan to be substantially higher than any existing system,” commented Stan Schwartz, marketing vice president, Nikon Instruments. “It’s also faster, and more versatile and accurate than a spinning disk.”