*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
*****

Dear Paul,

please, note that the name of these objective series was - and still is, 
although, as far as I know, production has been discontinued - 
"Ultrafluar" with "a", NOT "Ultraflu_o_r". When using E-bay or other 
sources, as had been suggested in an earlier response by user "Alex GT", 
one should nevertheless check out both spellings, since the wrong name 
"Ultrafluor" has, specifically in the anglophone world, been used for 
decades.

Also, one should note that these objectives, albeit outstanding in 
transmission from the limits of VUV and to the IR, do exhibit 
comparatively strong axial and lateral chromatic aberrations. Also, 
while they are anastigmatic, indeed, the curvature of their field of 
view is comparatively strong.

The source of this information is partly Dr. Höcherl at Zeiss, at this 
time quite certainly retired since many years, who, in the late 80s and 
early 90s let me know a lot of details about these lenses, when my task 
had been to built a CLSM for Fura-2 measurements. I had been lucky at 
that time to have a 32x Ultrafluar on loan from Dr. Thorbjörn Caspersson 
together with a Bausch & Lomb couple of 32x catadioptric objective and 
condenser from Dr. Rudolf Rigler, both at the Karolinska Inst. in Solna, 
Sweden. Both gentlemen at this time are retired, Dr. Caspersson had 
already been in his early 90s at that time. I do not have the slightest 
idea who is in charge of these marvelous lenses at this time.


Also, one should take great care when buying old style Ultrafluars, 
which still had been made for 160mm tube length microscopes. They will 
exhibit strange properties when used on infinity corrected microscopes. 
If one, however, gets lenses of the newer type, made for infinity 
corrected microscopes, one should also make sure to get the appropriate 
tube lens. While the standard tube lens for the Axio-series of 
microscopes was a single lens - very tricky and intelligently adapted to 
the Zeiss objectives to minimize aberrations -, the tube lens for the 
Ultrafluars was an achromatic doublet. Using the Ultrafluars on wrong 
tube lengths microscopes or together with an inappropriate tube lens may 
render them more or less useless.

Last and possibly not least: Some of these lenses were Glycerin 
immersion lenses made for coverslips from SiO2, 200microns in thickness. 
While fused silica is optically isotropic, good transmission values for 
the deep UV can be attained for coverslips from crystalline quarts, but 
these exhibit polarization effects due to the birefringence of the 
crystalline material. There was also a 100x/0.95 Ultrafluar dry lens for 
cover slip thickness 0, i.e. one for reflected light microscopy on 
metals or minerals. I am personally not sure whether there ever had been 
any 80x or 120x lenses by Zeiss. If these should be offered on E-bay, I 
would, indeed, carefully check the source.

Best wishes,

Johannes


On 2017-10-04 18:01, Paul Lebel wrote:
> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your 
> posting.
> *****
> 
> Dear confocal community,
> Does anyone know of where I could buy discontinued or used (in very 
> good
> condition) Zeiss Ultrafluor objectives, 40x or higher? It seems their
> higher magnifications are discontinued. Alternatively, if anybody knows
> other objectives with high transmission ratio down to 260 nm it would 
> be
> greatly appreciated. Other deep UV threads on this list mostly discuss
> light sources and multiphoton excitation approaches - I did not see 
> much
> discussion on sourcing UV imaging optics but apologies if I missed an
> existing, relevant thread.
> 
> High NA reflective objectives are also an option, but it would seem 
> that
> accessible off the shelf models are aberration-limited (for example
> thorlabs LMM-40X-UVV-160 includes a zemax model showing a ray spot 
> diagram
> limited to 1.2 um resolution). I have not seen models of other similar
> objectives, but they are for the most part also two-mirror 
> Schwarzschild
> layout and so also limited to two correcting surfaces. It occurs to me 
> that
> the lithography community would be a great source of high resolution
> reflecting optics, but I am much less familiar with that field.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks!
> 
> Paul

-- 
P. Johannes Helm

Voice:	(+47) 228 51159 (office)
Fax:	(+47) 228 51499 (office)