Confocal laser scanning microscopy (or: CLSM) has been used since 1987. It is based on 1957s Marvin Minsky’s confocal microscopy patent and is mechanically optimized by Egger and Petran in the following ten years from its discovery. A confocal system uses laser light to focus on a small section (plane) of your sample and uses a pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light coming from the sample. Laser scanning means that the laser light is directed by two mirrors in Y and X to a specific location on the sample. The motorized mirrors will “scan” the plane of the sample and an image will be acquired point by point. CLSM sectioning capacity and high resolution have made this method the first choice for 2D and 3D imaging for scientists in a wide variety of research fields.
Our Rescan confocal technology is the new spinoff of CLSM
The Re-scanning Confocal Microscope (RCM) combines a standard confocal microscope with an extra rescanning unit. The scanner reads the object on the x and y-axis and the rescanner writes the image on the camera sensor. By controlling the sweep of the rescanning mirrors we can control the resolution. If the sweep of the scanner and rescanner are identical, the resolution will be similar to a conventional CLSM. With a diffraction-limited resolution of 240nm. Doubling the sweep of the rescanning mirror increases the lateral resolution and gives a final and improved resolution of 170nm.
Want to know more about CLSM and RCM? Take a look at our video!
How Rescanning super-resolution is helping science:
- Microbiology: Organization and dynamics of lipids and membrane proteins in bacteria.
- Food science: Single-molecule localization in turbid emulsions.
- Medicine: Folate-targeted Pluronic-chitosan nanocapsules loaded with IR780 for
near-infrared fluorescence imaging and photothermal-photodynamic therapy of
ovarian cancer. - Cell biology: Depletion of the cellular cholesterol content reduces the dynamics
of desmosomal cadherins and interferes with desmosomal strength.
Discover more about the power of RCM!
Do you want to know more about confocal laser scanning and our Re-scanning Confocal Microscope? Head over to our product page!
