Advanced Light Microscopy and Spectroscopy Laboratory
Equipment
Leica Confocal and Multiphoton TCS SP2 MP-FLIM
Main Use: Standard confocal microscopy with slides and non-standard specimens, multiphoton microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging
The Leica DMIRE2 is the ideal combination of motorization, automation, high stability, optimized system compatibility, ergonomics and user convenience. And yet again, we have proved that Leica is not only keeping pace with progress, but is actually setting the pace.
The FLIM method: The fluorescence lifetime is a measure of how long a fluorophore remains on average in its excited state before returning to the ground state by emitting a fluorescence photon. The emission of a fluorescence photon from a fluorophore does not occur at a fixed time. Instead, a distribution of times is observed, which can be described by an exponential decay function. The characteristic time constant of this decay, the fluorescence lifetime, is in the range of a few picoseconds (10-12 s) to several tens of nanoseconds (10-9 s).
- Leica DMIRE2 inverted microscope stand.
Combined multi-photon/fluorescence lifetime imaging. - Ultrafast pulsed Spectra-Physics Mai-Tai Ti:S laser (tunable from 710 to 990 nm for IR excitation).
- 2 non-descanned detectors (NDDs).
- Single photon lasers (attenuated using acousto-optical tuning filters (AOTFs)).
- Argon laser: excitation lines at 458, 476, 488, 496 and 514 nm(blue-cyan).
- 3 helium-neon lasers: excitation lines at 543 (green), 594 (orange) and 633 (far red) nm.
- Software modules for fluorescence (or Förster) resonance energy transfer (FRET) and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP).
- Acousto-Optical Beam Splitter (AOBS).
Computer attached with Becker-Hickl software for time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) for FLIM data collection and analysis.