Dear All,

A Happy New Year and a few manufacturer comments to (hopefully :-)) finalize
the discussion about the transmission efficiency of the Leica TCS SP and the
new Leica TCS SP2 Spectral Confocal Microscopes.

The Leica TCS SP brochure contains a simplified scan head diagram intended
to make the detector principle of the imaging spectrophotometer
understandable. The actual construction of the scan head ensures reflection
losses of 1-2% on each side of a dispersive element, mainly achieved by
using special broadband coatings computed for the actual angles of
incidence. It is far more efficient than filters or gratings.

The Leica TCS SP design therefore enables:

1. The flexibility to freely choose the optimal Emission Wavelength and
Bandwidth

2. Collection of more of the available fluorescent signal and the removal of
cross-talk by gating wavelengths within the
   spectra of a fluorochrome (versus attempting to match a filter curve to
the dye).

3. Detection of weak fluorescent signals and less fading due to superior
collection efficiency.

4. Spectral scanning.

I am sure everyone appreciates that Leica Microsystems will not post further
details of the SP design.

Martin

-----------------
Martin Hoppe, Ph.D.
VP Marketing/Sales
Leica Microsystems Heidelberg GmbH
Im Neuenheimer Feld 518
D 69120 Heidelberg/Germany
Phone +49-6221-414820
Fax +49-6221-414833
Email: [log in to unmask]