Dover Motion, a designer and manufacturer of motion solutions for life sciences and diagnostics instruments, has launched the DOF-5 objective focusing stage. The DOF-5 is a microscope objective nanopositioning stage optimised for optical imaging applications.
Developed for automated microscope objective focusing applications including next-generation sequencing (NGS), digital cell morphology, and automated digital pathology, the DOF-5 introduces many new features such as greater travel (>5mm) and performance improvements over piezo stages. These features are allowing product developers to achieve product performance gains, while the lower product cost is revealing new market, product and application opportunities.
Based on results from customer research, which involved interviewing numerous OEMs, a more flexible objective focusing stage was developed. The DOF-5 includes the following additional features and functionality: crossed roller bearings to remove common issues of flexure bearings which can be susceptible to off-axis motion; optical position feedback and servo drive controls integrated directly into the stage; embedded controller to reduce system complexity; inbuilt design features such as side mounted user adjustable hard stops to precisely set the objective travel and prevent collisions; and increased travel (up to 5mm), with higher bandwidth and fast step and settle to provide more engineering flexibility.