Light Microscopy

Zeiss Axiozoom V.16

Technical specifications:

Stereo microscope with zoom lens and Apotome 2 structured illumination for optical sectioning. The fluorescence system has a 200W HXP light source and filter sets for DAPI (BP 335-383 / BS 395 / BP 420-470), GFP (BP 450-490 / BS 495 / BP 500-550), HE FURA (BP 340/30 / BS 409 / BP 510/90) and Texas Red (BP 540-580 / BS 585 / BP 593-668).

Objective lens available:  Plan-Neofluar Z 1x / NA 0.25 / FWD 56 mm and a Plan-Neofluar Z 2.3x / NA 0.57 / FWD 10.6 mm.  Cameras available: Axiocam MRc (RGB / 1.4 MP / 12-Bits) and Axiocam HRm (mono / 13 MP / 14-Bits).

Led-based reflected light with dual arm spot illuminators and motorized transmitted light unit with bright field, brightfield plus, darkfield and oblique illumination. Motorized stage and focus, controlled by Sycop 3 joystick/touchpad interface. System software Zeiss ZEN 2. Licenses available: Multi-Channel, Measurement, Z-Stack, 3D VisArt, Tiles & Stitching, Image Analysis, Extended Focus and Experiment Designer.

 HP Z820 workstation with two Intel Xeon E5-2643 processors (3.30GHz), 32GB of RAM, 4TB of HD storage, 960GB of SSD storage and an AMD FirePro V5900 graphics card with 2GB of VRAM.

Zeiss Laser TIRF 3

Technical specifications:

The Total Internal Reflection Microscope (TIRF) exploits the properties of evanescent waves in a limited specimen region immediately adjacent to the interface between two media having different refractive indices. In practice, it allows elimination of background fluorescence from outside the focal plane, improving the signal-to-noise ratio and resolution of the features or events of interest. Objective lens: EC Plan-Neofluar 10x/0.3 Ph1, EC Plan-Neofluar 40x/0.75 Ph2 and Alpha Plan-Apochromat 100x/1.46/DIC. Cell incubation system including temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration control; and focus stabilization system (Definite Focus). Such characteristics allow the performance of long-term live cell imaging experiments. Fluorescence filter sets: Alexa Fluor 488 (BP 488/10 / FT 500 / BP 525/50), Alexa Fluor 532 (BP 514/10 / FT 540 / BP 575/50) and two triple filter sets (TBP 406 + 489 + 561 / TFT 427 + 503 + 578 / TBP 459 + 525 + 608) and (TBP 483 + 564 + 642 / TFT 506 + 582 + 659 / TBP 526 + 601 + 688). HXP 120W light source for wide-field fluorescence microscopy type and 405 nm, 488 nm, 532 nm, 561 nm, and 639 nm laser lines for TIRF applications.

Zeiss Elyra PS.1 / LSM 710

Technical specifications:

Super-resolution microscope with Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) and techniques based on Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM), including Photoactivated Localization Microscopy (PALM) and Microscopy Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (dSTORM – direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy). The system is equipped with a LSM 710 confocal microscopy module. Objective lens available: EC Plan-Neofluar 10x/0.30, Plan-Apochromat 63x/1.4 DIC and Alpha Plan-Apochromat 100x/1.46x DIC. Lasers for super-resolution techniques: 405 nm, 488 nm, 561 nm, and 642 nm.  lasers for confocal microscopy: 405 nm, 488 nm, 514 nm, 458 nm, 543 nm, and 633 nm. The super-resolution emission filters BP 420 – 480 + LP 750, 495 – 575 + LP 750, 570 – 650 + LP 750 and LP 655 are available. The HP Z820 Microscope Workstation has two Intel Xeon E5-2643 processors (3.30GHz), 64GB of RAM, 4TB of HD storage and AMD Fire Pro V5900 graphics with 2GB of VRAM, enabling high processing and rendering speed of images.

Optical Tweezer for high precision measurements.

Technical specifications:

An inverted light microscope is coupled to a 1064 nm Infrared laser to create an optical tweezer. The system also includes a 60x/1.4 NA and a 100x /1.4 NA objective lenses, a XYZ motorized piezoelectric stage for fine sample movement and a CCD camera for real-time imaging. The system is prepared to perform force measurements at the femtonewton scale together with displacements at the nanometer scale.

Optical tweezer for routine analysis.

Technical specifications:

An inverted optical microscope is coupled to a 1064nm Infrared laser, to create an optical tweezer, and a 488nm blue laser, for fluorescence imaging. The system also includes a 60x / 1.4 NA and a 100x / 1.4 NA objective lenses, together with a XY motorized piezoelectric stage for fine sample displacement and camera for real-time imaging. An incubation chamber with CO2 and temperature controls is also available, allowing for live cell experiments. The entire system is prepared to perform force measurements at the piconewton scale and displacements at the nanometer scale.