Perkin Elmer UltraView Spinning Disk
Dual-camera spinning disk confocal
microscopy of live or fixed samples using
4 fluorophores and motorized XYZ stage.
Spinning disk confocal microscopy offers
several advantages over conventional optical
microscopy, including widefield and laser
scanning confocal microscopy. This confocal
technique allows acquisition of images at very
high frame rates with minimum illumination of
samples. These qualities make Spinning Disk
confocal microscopy particularly well suited to
high-speed 3D imaging of living systems.
A spinning disk confocal scanner typically
uses a pair of rotating disks with thousands of
pinholes in a spiral Archimedes. In some
spinning disks such as the Yokogawa CSU
scanners, the second disk is fitted with
microlenses which increase the efficiency,
making this technique highly suitable for live
cell imaging of weakly expressing samples
which are prone to photobleaching.
As light is projected on to the disk the holes trace concentric arcs of excitation light across
the sample. Fluorescent light from the specimen returns along the same path through the
objective lens and the pinhole, and reflected by the dichroic mirror through a relay lens to the
detector. As the whole field of view is scanned in this way during a single camera exposure a
high quality confocal image is formed very quickly, allowing the capture of quality confocal
images at incredibly high speed.
The spinning disk confocal microscope collects multiple points simultaneously rather than
scanning a single point at a time, which means that the technology is both faster and hits the
sample with a lower dose of laser light. A high sensitivity CCD camera leads to the possibility
of incredibly fast frame rates.
Applications
 4 colour imaging
 point visiting / multiwell plate scanning
 timelapse imaging
 Z-sections
 simultaneous imaging in 2 colours using 2 cameras
 interactive FRAP, FLIP using photokinetics module
 combinations of all above
Location : MCB building, L.1.20, University of Warwick
Contact: Professor Rob Cross
R.A.Cross@warwick.ac.uk
21 September 2012
Scarman House, University of Warwick