M41 – LSM980 Axio Observer (inverted) with Airyscan 2 and incubation

The M41 system is an inverted point laser scanning confocal microscope – LSM980. It is a spectral system allowing the free choice of detection and the acquisition of lambda-stacks as well as subsequent unmixing for the separation of dyes with overlapping emission spectra.

LSM980 features 4 highly sensitive GaAsP (Gallium Arsenide) detectors with a QE of 45% and up to 2x SNR as compared to standards PMTs.

M41 is equipped with a motorized xyz-stage and a definite focus (hardware autofocus device). The system is fully programmable and therefore able to run multidimensional experiments including any combination of the following: multiple positions, multiple wavelengths, z-Stacks, time-lapse. In addition the M41 system features Airyscan II - a hexagonal GaAsP detector.

This device enables improvement of the resolving power in XYZ by a factor of 1.7. The fast mode of the AiryScan called AiryScan MPLX allows 4-8x faster acquisition with up to 1.5x improvement of the optical resolving power and up to 4x increase of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) compared to 1AU confocal mode.

Furthermore it´s also equipped with a laser ablation device, UGA42-Caliburn from Rapp OptoElectronic. Caliburn, a scanner based photomanipulator, uses 355nm high power laser that allows for laser manipulation during image acquisition, e.g., laser ablation, DNA damage. This microscope is controlled with the ZEN Blue software.