Microscopy instrumentation

Microscopy capabilities

  • Single- and Multi-Photon Laser Scanning Confocal time-resolved fluorescence imaging
  • Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM)
  • Scanning Near Field Optical Microscopy (SNOM)
  • Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy (STED)
  • Time Resolved Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy (TIRFM) – Evanescent Wave Induced Fluorescence for FLIM and SLIM
  • Single Molecule Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

Microscopes

Laser Scanning Confocal (Olympus IX71/FV300) – coupled to mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser/OPO system providing wavelengths 370-460nm, 530-700nm, 700-950nm for single or multi-photon excitation
This microscope has a range of TCSPC detectors and sixteen channel spectral FLIM capabilities for time-resolved fluorescence imaging

Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscope (Nikon TE2000)
This system can be coupled to a range of CW and ultrafast lasers enabling time-resolved TIRFM using a picosecond ICCD camera

Structured Illumination Microscopy (408nm, 442nm, 472nm, 532nm, 633nm & others possible)
This system is capable of dual wavelength (or polarisation) detection on a single (EMCCD or sCMOS) camera using an OptoSplit system

sim

Scanning near field optical microscopy (SNOM) (Nanonics)
Transmission and fluorescence modes via single photon counting coupled to the various CW or mode-locked lasers

Transient absorption microscopy
Transmission based femtosecond transient absorption microscope using a mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator/FemtoWhite laser system.

Single Molecule spectroscopy and wide field defocussed microscopy

Stimulated emission microscopy
Both Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy and stimulated emission microscopy are under construction

Localisation microscopy
Photoactivated Localisation Microscopy (PALM) and Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) are under construction

Cameras

EMCCD (Roper)
sCMOS (Andor)
TCSPC (Becker and Hickl SPC830 & SPC150, EI TCC900 cards)
Gated photon counting (Nikon LIMO)
High repetition rate intensified CCD camera (La Vision PicoStarHR)

Time-resolved microscopy techniques

Please contact Trevor Smith (trevoras@unimelb.edu.au, (03) 8344 6272) to discuss collaborative projects relating to any of these modes of microscopy