Confocal Microscopes Articles
Confocal and Light Sheet Imaging
Optical imaging instrumentation can magnify tiny objects, zoom in on distant stars and reveal details that are invisible to the naked eye. But it notoriously suffers from an annoying problem: the…
Acousto Optics in True Confocal Spectral Microscope Systems
Acousto-optical elements have successfully replaced planar filters in many positions. The white confocal, regarded as the fully spectrally tunable confocal microscope, was not possible without this…
Nobel Prize 2013 in Physiology or Medicine for Discoveries of the Machinery Regulating Vesicle Traffic
On October 7th 2013, The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 jointly to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof…
Handbook of Optical Filters for Fluorescence Microscopy
Fluorescence microscopy and other light-based applications require optical filters that have demanding spectral and physical characteristics. Often, these characteristics are application-specific and…
Spectral Detection – How to Define the Spectral Bands that Collect Probe-specific Emission
To specifically collect emission from multiple probes, the light is first separated spatially and then passes through a device that defines a spectral band. Classically, this is a common glass-based…
Nobel Prize 2012 in Physiology or Medicine for Stem Cell Research
The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings…
Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS)
Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy ( FCS ) measures fluctuations of fluorescence intensity in a sub-femtolitre volume to detect such parameters as the diffusion time, number of molecules or dark…
White Light Laser
The perfect light source for confocal microscopes in biomedical applications has sufficient intensity, tunable color and is pulsed for use in lifetime fluorescence. Furthermore, it should offer means…
Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP) and its Offspring
FRAP (Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching) can be used to study cellular protein dynamics: For visualization the protein of interest is fused to a fluorescent protein or a fluorescent dye. A…
Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)
The Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) phenomenon offers techniques that allow studies of interactions in dimensions below the optical resolution limit. FRET describes the transfer of the energy…
Mosaic Images
Confocal laser scanning microscopes are widely used to create highly resolved 3D images of cells, subcellular structures and even single molecules. Still, an increasing number of scientists are…
Confocal Optical Section Thickness
Confocal microscopes are employed to optically slice comparably thick samples.