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I haven't heard of the VC levels before, but I would think an air table to be necessary for super-resolution work in all but a very, very stable basement. A good approximation is that you will want about the same level of vibration isolation as for electron microscopy (VC-D on a quick google, although if you go by lithographic feature size you'd want VC-E or better). That said, you can probably get away with somewhat higher levels of vibration if it is sufficiently fast (several hundred Hz or higher) that it averages out over your frame time. Fast vibrations will just decrease your widefield resolution somewhat, a fact that can be compensated for by the localisation. We run our super-resolution setups on air tables and still have some vibration issues related to the fans in the EMCCD cameras (if we just slap them on the side port with no additional damping we get focus oscillations on the order 50-100 nm).

cheers,
David


________________________________
 From: Kate Luby-Phelps <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Friday, 8 June 2012 8:18 AM
Subject: vibration criteria for super-resolution
 
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I am interested people's practical experience regarding the level of vibration 
isolation required for single molecule imaging and super-resolution imaging. 

Specifically,  our new building has a z-axis vibration spike that reaches VC-A at 
a single frequency (below VC-C in x,y and z for all other frequencies).  If they 
are unsuccessful at remediating the spike, would we need active air tables for 
high-end instruments?   Most of the scopes in question would be inverted. 

Putting the question another way, would we need to reach VC-E or lower for 
single molecule and super-resolution imaging?

Thanks,

Kate L-P