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Hi Will,
We have recently bought a Till iMic TIRF system as we needed a customised
solution for 3 channel imaging, which none of the other companies were able to
provide.
Despite a few teething problems with the optics, overall we are now very
happy with the performance. A few specific comments:
Software - fully automated control of filters, TIRF angle, acquisition parameters
etc. Different experimental protocols for e.g. timelapse, z-stack, multichannel,
multi-point, all of which can be modified or combine.
TIRF - precise and reproducible control of angle, automatic angle calibration,
elimination of interference fringes with the 360 illumination module. Very easy
to switch between TIRF and epi. After putting in some additional correction
optics, there is about 25% drop in illumination uniformity across the fov (100x).
Autofocus - the back reflected laser signal is used to monitor and correct for
focus drift. It can be a bit temperamental if you are using very low laser power,
but otherwise generally works well and was stable in an overnight test.
As it seems they are still developing the system to some extent, the engineers
were happy to work with us to get the best design and performance. The only
real issues we have at the moment are
- in conventional 1-point TIRF (i.e without 360 module) there is a high degree
of laser speckle. TILL are coming back to replace some dichroics, which they
believe will eliminate this.
- only 3 different filter cubes can be used at any one time. If necessary you
can 'hot-swap' the cube holder for a different set without turning the system
off.
Best
Nic
Locked
