Fast Piezo Focusing Systems for Microscopy Now Digital and More Affordable

PI introduces a new, more affordable series of Fast Piezo Focusing devices at the 2011 SPIE BIOS (Biomedical Optics) meeting in San Francisco, CA. The new PIFOC® system packages are designed to improve results in fast focussing & lens positioning as well in deconvolution / 3D imaging, and reduce costs at the same time.

The PIFOC® piezo objective scanner system packages consist of closed-loop piezomechanic objective positioners and custom-tuned compact ditigal servo controller / driver units. This combination provides higher performance at reduced costs. The integrated, frictionless and high-stiffness piezo flexure drive ensures fast response and short settling times, as well as exceptional guiding accuracy. The settling time of less than 10 ms increases throughput and allows for rapid Z-stack acquisition.

The digital controller provides several advantages compared to the conventional analog controllers of the fast focussing systems currently available: higher linearity, improved settling performance, quick adaptation to changing motion requirements and access to advanced automation features.

The included software facilitates system setup and allows switching of different sets of parameters on-the-fly. For the user this means exctracting the maximum performance from the piezo focusing mechanism all the time, no matter what size objective is used or whether aggressive long-travel stepping or smooth nanometer size dithering motion is needed. Since jumpers and trim pots no longer have to acessed to make changes, system integration becomes much more straightforward.

System setup with the included user-interface software is fast and easy; interfacing to the customers' software is facilitated with the included LabVIEW drivers and DLLs. Drivers for leading image acquisition software packages such as MetaMorph and µManager are available.

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