Optics

Special Optics objective lenses aid Nobel Prize research in fluorescence microscopy

Oct. 31, 2014

Special Optics is excited to have made a small contribution to the ground‐breaking research of Eric Betzig and his team at Janelia Research Campus, by collaborating and designing custom precision microscope objective lenses for their novel fluorescence microscopy systems.

Special Optics, a Navitar Company (Rochester, NY), says it congratulates this year's recipients of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry--Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner--and is excited to have made a small contribution to the ground‐breaking research of Eric Betzig and his team at Janelia Research Campus, by collaborating and designing custom precision microscope objective lenses for their novel fluorescence microscopy systems.

Special Optics first began working with Eric Betzig in 2006, the year Janelia Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute opened and Betzig’s focus was 3D live cell imaging and two‐photon plane illumination. Special Optics has designed and built numerous custom lenses for the Betzig Lab, including motorized 1‐4X beam expanders for correcting aberrations during in vivo imaging and most recently, a high NA water immersion objective lens used for excitation in the Bessel Beam Structured Plane Illumination Microscope.

Scientists using SPIM (selective plane illumination microscopy), LSFM (light sheet fluorescence microscopy), two‐photon, and PALM (photoactivated localization microscopy) super‐resolution fluorescence imaging techniques have identified Special Optics, says the company, as a respected custom lens design partner. The company’s custom microscope objective lens designs span working distances of 0.3mm to 55 mm, cover wavelengths from visible (390‐750 nm) to near-infrared wavelengths (700‐1400 nm), can be modified for aqueous, oil and vacuum environments, and have housings of stainless, ultem, or titanium.

"The work and achievements of Betzig, Hell and Moerner, and all researchers world‐wide pushing the limits of science to benefit society are to be acknowledged. We are pleased to work with HHMI, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Stanford University Department of Neurobiology; the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and many other organizations whose focus is the advancement of physics and life sciences research," says Jeremy Goldstein, president of Navitar, Special Optics' parent company.

SOURCE: Special Optics;http://www.iqep.com/news-2014/Oct_30_14.asp