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August 2013

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From:
Nic Cade <[log in to unmask]>
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Confocal Microscopy List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:15:03 -0500
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*****
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I wrote a brief review of our TILL iMic TIRF system back in January (below).

We are very happy with the system now, and the image quality and illumination 
homogeneity are excellent.
Two of the main advantages are
- TIRF angle calibration is fully automated and reproducible, which is obviously 
vital if you need consistent illumination conditions
- 360 degree TIRF illumination using fast scanning galvos, which completely 
eliminates interference fringes / speckling 

Cheers
Nic

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We have recently bought a Till iMic TIRF system as we needed a customised 
solution for 3 channel imaging, which none of the other companies were able to 
provide.

Despite a few teething problems with the optics, overall we are now very 
happy with the performance. A few specific comments:

Software - fully automated control of filters, TIRF angle, acquisition parameters 
etc. Different experimental protocols for e.g. timelapse, z-stack, multichannel, 
multi-point, all of which can be modified or combine. 

TIRF - precise and reproducible control of angle, automatic angle calibration, 
elimination of interference fringes with the 360 illumination module. Very easy 
to switch between TIRF and epi. After putting in some additional correction 
optics, there is about 25% drop in illumination uniformity across the fov (100x).

Autofocus -  the back reflected laser signal is used to monitor and correct for 
focus drift. It can be a bit temperamental if you are using very low laser power, 
but otherwise generally works well and was stable in an overnight test.

As it seems they are still developing the system to some extent, the engineers 
were happy to work with us to get the best design and performance. The only 
real issues we have at the moment are
- in conventional 1-point TIRF (i.e without 360 module) there is a high degree 
of laser speckle. TILL are coming back to replace some dichroics, which they 
believe will eliminate this.
- only 3 different filter cubes can be used at any one time.  If necessary you 
can 'hot-swap' the cube holder for a different set without turning the system 
off.

Best
Nic

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