Adaptive Optics
Ideal imaging conditions, even in turbid samples like tissue, are every microscopist’s dream. However, in practice, specimens are often inhomogeneous and, what’s more, embedding and immersion media are rarely perfectly index-matched. Refractive-index mismatches compromise the focusing capabilities of your microscope and can give rise to low-resolution and poor-quality images. abberior solves this problem using adaptive optics. Our Adaptive Optics unit, based on a deformable mirror, can maintain the imaging quality of your microscope, regardless of the specimen. Correction happens on-the-fly and leaves nothing to desire for your results.
automatic aberration correction
MATRIX Detector
Many eyes see more than one. The MATRIX detector drastically improves signal-to-background ratio, resolution, and dynamic range.
TIMEBOW Imaging
TIMEBOW lifetime imaging for stunning results at confocal and STED super-resolution.
Adaptive Illumination
Brings down the light dose on your sample and lables dramatically. Key ingredient for volume and live-cell superresolution.
Custom Solutions
We offer solutions for even the most challenging applications. Everything that can be done, we will do.
Description
NUP98-abberior STAR RED and GM130-abberior STAR ORANGE recorded at approx. 6 µm focus depth.
Sample preparation by abberior GmbH.
Adaptive Optics
fitting the beam to your sample.
What if deep tissue images were continuously sharp, from the coverslip down to hundreds of microns into the sample?
Our Adaptive Optics system based on a deformable mirror does exactly that: by correcting the refractive index mismatch between immersion and embedding media, plus sample-induced aberrations, your images are crisp and bright everywhere. Even for very large focusing depths, with any objective lens, and any embedding medium.
Inverted front half of L3-stage Drosophila melanogaster larva. Staining of Actin (Phalloidin-ATTO 647N). As the image is recorded, the aberration-compensating deformable mirror automatically follows the focusing depth. Once set up, acquisition runs completely automatic for bright, high-resolution imaging at any depth.
Samples by Sebastian Schnorrenberg, EMBL, Heidelberg.
From confocal microscopy over multiphoton imaging to 2D- and 3D-STED, all techniques suffer from aberrations that inevitably occur when focusing into a sample whose refractive index is different from the immersion medium, or when focusing into a sample with internal inhomogeneities. Using a deformable mirror that shapes the beam so as to pre-compensate for aberrations, all rays are put back in the right place for a crisp focus.
Spherical aberrations arising from index mismatch between sample and immersion are corrected for, as well as higher-order, sample-induced aberrations. Without Adaptive Optics, excitation laser power is typically increased with focus depth in order to compensate loss of signal due to aberrations. Adaptive Optics preserves resolution and brightness deep inside thick samples and enables imaging at low light levels.
With Adaptive Optics, we enhance the performance of our microscopes by manipulating the wavefronts of the STED, excitation and detection beams using a deformable mirror.
Undistorted wavefronts entering the sample from the objective lens are normally spherical, but variations of the refractive index in the sample can distort them, leading to an imperfect focus. The prime reason, which is almost always present to some extent, is a refractive index mismatch between sample embedding and the immersion medium, although local variations in the sample can lead to aberrations, too.
Using a deformable mirror allows us to effectively cancel aberrations. Deformable mirrors are adaptive elements with a reflective surface whose shape can be controlled. By applying the correct mirror shape, which is a negative of the distortions introduced by the sample, the focus is brought back to perfect shape, increasing signal and resolution even deep inside tissue.
Imaging a fluorescent bead layer at different depths (63x WI objective lens, TDE embedding). The deformable mirror automatically follows when focusing depth is changed. Brightness and resolution are largely preserved up to the working distance of the objective lens.
- Up to five times higher signal in thick sample sections
- Superior resolution with STED
- Often the enabler for 3D-STED imaging
- Automatic tracking of spherical aberrations
- Correction of higher order aberrations (astigmatism, coma, trefoil, …)
Super-sharp images, even in thick samples
Why do we usually recommend APDs in our microscopes and why aren’t we worried about the supposedly lower dynamic range?
Having too many photons is never a problem. Therefore, detectors with the highest quantum efficiency are always the best choice, such as in a MATRIX array.