尼康公司研制出新型扫频视野共聚焦显微镜

一种新型激光显微镜能够提供动态活细胞共聚焦成像。使用点扫描模式，能够以200帧/秒的速度获得高清晰度影像；使用裂隙扫瞄模式，图像获取频率则超过了1500帧/秒；同时将标本暴露于有损伤作用照明能量的可能减为最小。

这种SFC(扫频视野共聚焦)显微镜能够监测与记录活细胞水平毫秒时间内快速发生的事件，而不会降低空间清晰度；同时通过对高频、低强度照明的控制，减少光子褪色以及光子毒性作用对标本的影响。

扫描头包含了纵列扫描技术、电流计以及压电控制扫描镜。照明光子通过一行固定的32个小孔聚焦在标本上，对标本的照明每点是300次/秒。发射光子二次扫描，通过附加的一行小孔聚焦于成像面，从那里再发射到敏感度极高的电荷耦合器件(CCD)相机。因为这小孔是固定的，包含这些小孔的托盘能够包含4行小孔，可以根据所有共聚焦显微镜最常用物镜的轴向与横向最大清晰度来选择每行小孔的大小。

这种LiveScan显微镜是由尼康公司(Yokohama, Japan)研制成功的。尼康设备公司市场部副总裁Stan Schwartz说：“我们希望这种产品的最高扫描性能完全高于任何现在使用的系统，而且更加快速，比涡流盘用途更加广泛更加精确。”

New Swept Field Confocal Microscope
 
A new laser microscope offers dynamic live-cell confocal imaging and can be used in point-scan mode for high resolution data acquisition at frame rates exceeding 200 frames/sec, and in slit-scan mode at acquisition frequencies exceeding 1,500 frames/sec, while minimizing specimen exposure to damaging illumination energy.

The SFC (swept field confocal) microscope can monitor and record rapidly occurring events in msec time resolution within living cells without compromising spatial resolution, while simultaneously controlling high frequency, low intensity illumination, which reduces photobleaching and phototoxicity.

The scan head combines tandem scanning technology with galvanometer and piezo-controlled scanning mirrors. The illuminating photons are focused through a row of 32 stationary pinholes over the specimen so each point in the specimen is illuminated 300 times/sec. The emission photons are de-scanned and focused through a complementary row of pinholes on the image side, and from there onto the face of a high-sensitivity charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. Because the pinholes are stationary, the plate containing them can contain four rows of pinholes, with the pinhole size for each row selected to maximize both axial and lateral resolution for all of the most commonly used objective lenses for confocal microscopy.

This LiveScan microscope was developed by Nikon Instruments (Yokohama, Japan). “We expect the maximum scan to be substantially higher than any existing system,” commented Stan Schwartz, marketing vice president, Nikon Instruments. “It’s also faster, and more versatile and accurate than a spinning disk.”