LEICA Microsystems says it is once again at the forefront of the confocal microscope market with the launch of the Leica TCS SP8, successor to the SP5 series. Launched in June 2012 and demonstrated at the European Microscopy Congress EMC2012 in Manchester UK this month (September), the SP8 platform can be upgraded for multiple imaging applications.
Leica says the TCS SP8 has the fastest confocal scanner available
Among those applications are super-resolution and super-sensitivity imaging, high content screening, CARS microscopy, single-molecule detection, electrophysiology, and deep-tissue imaging with more than one multiphoton source.
The company notes that life science researchers are increasingly interested in the dynamic imaging of living cells.
The company makes great play of the speed of the confocal scanner, which can be as high as 428 frames per second with the new 12kHz Tandem Scanner. Alternatively, the Field of View (FOV) scanner offers what the company says is the largest field of view available.
Both are designed to work with either the Acousto-Optical Beam Splitter (AOBS), for fast and transparent beam splitting, or the new Low Incident Angle LIAchroic beam splitters – designed to optimise optical throughput.
The TCS SP8 is designed on a modular arrangement to enable easy upgrade and reconfiguration, and is compatible with the top-end Leica gate technology to suppress reflected light. The company says this results in genuinely super-resolution live cell imaging, capable of revealing detailed high contrast images with a resolution of better than 50nm.