Leica extends multiphoton microscopy with integrated OPO

24 Jan 2011

Leica Microsystems has effectively matched the Leica TCS SP5 MP multiphoton microscope with a fully integrated OPO (optical parametric oscillator) system.

 The integration of the Coherent Chameleon Compact OPO with the Leica TCS SP5 MP confocal and multiphoton microscope allows observation of fast dynamic processes in living cells with deep penetration at high resolution with one integrated microscope system.

Full integration of the OPO within the software control of the multiphoton system greatly facilitates research as it en­ables the user to precisely adjust the excitation sources as well as all other imaging settings within the same soft­ware. This makes the Leica TCS SP5 MP with OPO a powerful tool for in vivo imaging.

The Leica TCS SP5 MP with OPO ex­tends the choice of excitation wave­lengths from formerly up to 1080 nm to now up to 1300 nm. The user can con­veniently select between OPO and stan­dard MP excitation wavelengths and has the choice of simultaneous or sequential excitation with the OPO and MP laser together.

Tubulin. Multiphoton excitation of Atto 647N at 1200nm.

The broad range of excitation wavelengths allows for multiphoton excitation of dyes and cellular auto fluorescence from the visible up to the red range of the spectrum. This allows the researcher to use red dyes such as mCherry, DsRed2, mRFP, TexasRed and Alexa660 for multiphoton microscopy. Using dyes at longer excitation wavelengths is less harmful to the specimen and decreases the amount of scattered light. This allows deeper penetration into very thick samples like thick tissue sections and whole mount preparations of complete organs.

The addition of the Leica OPO solution to the Leica TCS family greatly extends the range of multiphoton applications with respect to multiphoton excitation in NIR and IR, viability of the samples as well as penetration depth.