Andor Launches ‘Optically Centered Crop Mode’ for Live Cell Super-Resolution Microscopy

Andor Technology plc (Andor), a world leader in scientific imaging and spectroscopy solutions, today announced the launch of their ‘Optically Centered Crop Mode’ on the market leading iXon Ultra EMCCD platform. This offers extremely fast frame rate performance from Region of Interest (ROI), and is ideally matched to the speed and sensitivity needs of live cell super-resolution microscopy.

Available on the iXon Ultra 897 camera, a camera that is already inherently speed boosted through overclocking of the sensor, the new Optically Centered Crop Mode facilitates centrally located ROI performance that significantly outstrips that available through conventional ROI means. For example, a frame rate of 569 fps is achievable from a 128 x 128 ROI, a factor of 2 - 3x faster than competing EMCCD cameras with the same ROI. The iXon is available to ship with the OptoMask accessory, which facilitates use of this high speed mode.

Colin Coates, Imaging Product Manager at Andor Technology, commented, “Initial feedback that we have received points towards Optically Centred Crop Mode being of particular relevance to the pointillism single molecule-based super-resolution microscopy community. For example, the camera may be operated in full 512 x 512 resolution at a frame rate suited to generation of fixed cell super-resolved images, then this new mode can be invoked with a 128 x 128 ROI for generation of super-resolved live cell images at 10x faster rate, allowing dynamic events to be followed. The mode will also be of interest to many other fast applications, such as ion signalling, fluorescence correlation microscopy and astronomy adaptive optics.”