Nikon says that one of the biggest obstacles to acquiring meaningful live cell time-lapse data has been swept away with the real-time focus facility on the TE2000-PFS motorised inverted microscope
The Nikon TE2000-PFS motorised inverted microscope now offers 'drift-freee' imaging to research experiments involving live cells, by eliminating variables such as thermal change of chambers or those caused by the microscope itself in long-term or high-speed time-lapse observation.
Now consistent focus can be maintained for observations of days or more by simply focusing on the desired plane, and then turning PFS on.
Stable in-focus observations over an extended period of time are possible with the TE2000-PFS as it automatically detects the surface of the coverslip optically and continually corrects the focus to compensate for even the most infinitesimal changes.
This means that researchers no longer have to adjust the focus knob every time stage movement occurs, or after adding reagents.
As focus adjustment is no longer necessary photobleaching is also minimised, meaning cells can be kept alive for longer during fluorescence imaging.
In addition, rapid changes within cells can be detected as PFS instantaneously corrects focus drift resulting from temperature drop when adding reagents.
PFS is compatible with a wide range of observation methods, from brightfield, fluorescence to DIC, TIRF, phase contrast and others.
