Traditional laser light sources for confocal imaging of live cells can pose a number of challenges for researchers, but there is a way to increase wavelength flexibility without increasing cost, thanks to the ZIVA Light Engine for Yokogawa CSU
Laser combiners can be notoriously expensive to purchase and maintain, requiring considerable expertise and upkeep. Lumencor’s ZIVA Light Engine for Yokogawa CSU was designed to change the game. ZIVA can enhance brightness, spectral breadth and field flatness in a compact, user-friendly package.
Introduction to Yokogawa CSU
Yokogawa CSU is a widely accepted, life-science industry standard for three-dimensional confocal fluorescence imaging of live cells, tissues, and model organisms. However, the wavelengths of traditional lasers on CSU are typically limited to just four. Further, the cost of these lasers can often exceed the cost of the CSU scanner itself.
Lumencor’s ZIVA Light Engine increases the number of lasers from four to seven at a price significantly below that of the CSU scanner.
The solution
Lumencor’s ZIVA for Yokogawa CSU includes seven independent, solid-state lasers. Bright, stable lasers are allied to sophisticated control and electronic monitoring to deliver the performance needed to support CSU-W1, X1 and SoRa super-resolution microscopy. The use of seven turnkey lasers can eliminate the cost and time Lightening the load for life science researchers Traditional laser light sources for confocal imaging of live cells can pose a number of challenges for researchers, but there is a way to increase wavelength flexibility without increasing cost, thanks to the ZIVA Light Engine for Yokogawa CSU associated with laser service, allowing researchers to focus on the science, not overly complicated lighting hardware.
ZIVA’s lasers are refined by bandpass filters, merged into a common optical train, despeckled, and directed through a precision-engineered adapter tailored to the Yokogawa CSU-W1 or CSU-X1. After installation, alignment is as simple as translating a robust illumination field onto the centre of your camera sensor. Up to 22mm camera diagonals are well supported. ZIVA wavelength selection is fully electronic; as such, in the absence of an external optomechanical selection component, no light leakage occurs. Precision-engineered optical couplers provide intense, uniform sample-plane illumination. These sophisticated capabilities are seamlessly integrated within a turnkey, compact, bench-top device.
The results
The results include 75% more spectra, thanks to seven stable, robust lasers spanning 405- 750nm. In addition, researchers can benefit from 75% lower cost, as the seven lasers plus filters actually cost less than a traditional four laser combiner. Within sensitive cells, living tissue and organelles, dual disk spinning disk systems offer a “gentle” means to observe denoised biological specimen dynamics. Clare Waterman, Distinguished Investigator, Cell and Tissue Morphodynamics at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (one of the U.S. National Institutes of Health) says of the Lumencor ZIVA Light Engine for Yokogawa CSU: “The brightness, exposure and biology played out beautifully in a very rational and simple-to-approach illuminator. As microscopes have got more complicated, having an easy-to-use, indestructible Light Engine is invaluable.
“I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t buy the ZIVA, the advantages are obvious.”
Unmatched value
Whether your Yokogawa CSU is new or old, Lumencor’s ZIVA for Yokogawa CSU adds unmatched value. Bright, stable, robust, long-lived, spectrally broad light is critical to advancing your imaging capabilities. Doesn’t your CSU deserve the best in solid-state lighting?
Find out more about Lumencor’s ZIVA Light Engine for Yokogawa CSU.
