Posted by
Kate Luby-Phelps on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/comparison-of-lasers-for-MPM-tp7582206p7582224.html
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In our core facility at UT Southwestern, we have three Coherent lasers: a refurbished Ultra
that was a replacement for our Chameleon XR, an Ultra II and a Vision. We carry service
contracts on all of them. We have found them to be very reliable and have experienced no
more than a day or two of down time since 2005, and none since we got rid of the XR. Our
head hours are in the thousands. The built in compensation on the Vision does give some
improvement in deep penetration but there is a time lag in the adjustment (through Zeiss
Zen software) that makes difficult to tweak it precisely. Don't know whether it is the laser or
the software that dictates this. In 10 years we have only had to ship a laser back twice and
both times Coherent sent us a replacement first. If we had to pay for shipping to Scotland I
am not aware of it. We have found that two photon excitation of mcherry is barely possible
with these lasers and cy5 is impossible, so if your users want to have a cy5 two photon
channel, an OPO will be necessary. Not sure whether the DeepSee can do far red? A Watt at
1300 nm sounds like it might do the job. Although I have no personal experience with SP,
what I hear via the grapevine suggests that the coherent and sp lasers are equally good
these days. My two cents.