150 W xenon or mercury-xenon arc burner

The 150 W xenon arc burner provides broadband illumination from near-UV to near-IR, while the mercury-xenon burner provides the same coverage plus five very intense peaks that guarantee low exposure times for samples with corresponding fluorophores. The stability of both types is superior to standard mercury burners and is further enhanced by specialized electronics. The resulting minimal exposure time greatly reduces phototoxicity and photobleaching.

Critical epi-illumination with optimized intensity

The use of critical illumination instead of traditional Kohler illumination delivers all light to the area of interest and generates much stronger signal intensity. This is achieved by routing the fluorescent light to the microscope via high-quality single quartz fiber optic cable that maximizes light efficiency without quality loss and achieves much shorter camera exposure times.

All Modules Operate in Parallel

The MT20-E communicates with the real-time controller at intervals of 100 µs, and all integrated components (shutter, excitation filter wheel and attenuator wheel) move in parallel in sync with the camera readout and any other component integrated in the system. This leads to very fast imaging speeds.

Fast switching times

Extremely efficient operation is ensured by very fast switching times. For example, the filter switch operates at a minimum of 58 ms for neighboring positions. Eight filter positions of 25 mm diameter can be exchanged quickly without tools and the attenuation switch with 14 levels operates at less than 58 ms.

1 ms shutter on/off time

The fast shutter on/off time minimizes the duration that the sample needs to be exposed to light in order to carry out multi-wavelength experiments. Thanks to fast control of all system components, live cell experiments are optimized to provide insightful data without compromising cell viability.