Ultramicroscope

The ultramicroscope (LaVision Biotec) is a fluorescence microscope based on a light-sheet illumination. The illumination is therefore perpendicular to the acquisition plane by a sheet of light between 4 and 10 μm in thickness and the width of the whole of the sample. In order to limit the artifacts the light sheet is divided into three sub-beams which converge towards the sample with angles disputes, which makes it possible to avoid the phenomena of shading artefact current with this technique. Moreover, the illumination can come from the left or the right or from both sides successively in order to obtain the best possible image according to the sample and the area to be imaged. The microscope is equipped with a very sensitive (CMOS) camera and very resolutive (2560×2160 pixels per image). The available magnification (from 1.26 to 12.6 X) allows optimal exploration of the entire organ up to the cellular and sub-cellular levels. Equipped with a white laser (a pulsed picosecond laser coupled to a spectrally dispersing fiber generating a supercontinuum ranging from 450 nm to more than 900 nm), we have the possibility of imaging any fluorophore in the visible and near infrared . This technology involves using clarified samples whose production techniques are now well established and protocols perform well. The size of the volume that can be imaged is of the order of a cubic centimeter at a resolution of the order of a micrometer in the plane and 2 micrometers in depth.

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