Re: Pin-hole issue in disk vs. line scanning confocal
Posted by
George McNamara on
May 20, 2012; 1:53pm
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Pin-hole-issue-in-disk-vs-line-scanning-confocal-tp7567859p7567909.html
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Hi Don,
Would be much simpler to simply crank up the laser power on the LaVision
Biotec TriMscope. References at the bottom of
http://www.lavisionbiotec.com/fileadmin/user_upload/TRIM/Introduction_into_TriM_Scope.pdfThe Visitech VTinfinity array scanner (which uses a different array
principle) Specification page states pinhole (array) is selectable by
software.
http://www.visitech.co.uk/site/products.phphttp://www.visitech.co.uk/site/products/specs.php?mProduct=vtinfinty_prod&mImgLGE=/logo/vtinfinity_lge.gif*Pinholes*
User selectable via software; 7 sizes from 10um to 64um diameter
*Scan rate*
Up to 1000 fps
George
On 5/20/2012 9:10 AM, O'Malley, Donald wrote:
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> The point was made that 5 mW is a lot of laser power. With live specimens it is extremely useful to trade off some optical sectioning by gradually opening the "pinhole" aperture-- this allows one to operate at much lower light intensities, and can easily be done in the course of live imaging experiments with most line-scanning confocals (i.e. aperture can be adjusted without disturbing the specimen on the microscope stage). With the fixed pinhole size of disk scanners, which are designed to maximize spatial resolution, a large laser power is required, which is not ideal for extended live cell/animal imaging experiments.
>
> My question is if commercial disk scanners have a set of disks allowing one to switch to larger apertures, and if this trade-off can be made "on-line", i.e. in between successive acquisitions on a sample? I would especially appreciate a pointer to any peer-reviewed publications on this topic.
>
> Best Regards,
> Don
>
> Don O'Malley
> Assoc. Professor
> Dept. Biology
>
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