Confocal Microscope Laboratory

The centerpiece is a Zeiss 200M optical microscope that has: 5 objectives, magnification power from 5 times to 160 times, a maximum xy resolution of about 200 nm, a Pizero stage with a z axis resolution of 1.5 nm, and a reflector turret with slots for 5 cubes.  There is an epi-fluorescence system attached that has an ultraviolet, a blue, and a green excitation filter.  There is a Spot camera with 6.45 micrometer pixel size that can be used for brightfield and epi-florescent imaging.  McBain Instruments set up a confocal attachment that includes a CSU-10 Yokogawa confocal scanner, an emission filter wheel, four lasers, a Hamamatsu camera with an 8 micrometer pixel size, and associated electronics for hardware control.  The four lasers provide the following excitation frequencies: 405, 457, 488, 514, 532, 568, and 647 nm.  The emission filter wheel contains the following filters (Center/FWHM): 450/35, 485/30, 520/35, 545/30,585/40, 593/45, 624/40, 692/40, and 810/50 nm.

We have the ability to perform ablation using a MicroPoint system purchased from Photonic Instruments.

The CSU-10 scanning system can produce optical sections that have a depth of field as small as 1.06 micrometers.  It can take an image in as low as 3 ms.

This entire system is controlled with the SimplePCI software from Compix Inc., Imaging Systems.  We also have the Imaris software package from Bitplane that is optimized for the construction of three-dimensional objects from z-scan data produced with a confocal microscope.

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