Sensitive and rapid sCMOS camera for fluorescence fluctuation imaging

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This NSERC RTI grant will support the purchase of a back illuminated sCMOS camera to replace an inoperable and obsolete electron multiplying charged coupled device (EMCCD) camera for fluorescence imaging on our main lab microscope. CMOS image sensors are used in almost all cell phone cameras to capture images. The very rapid advance of this light detection technology in the past decade has led directly to the state of the art scientific CMOS (sCMOS) camera that we wish to purchase. The new back illuminated sCMOS cameras are 95% quantum efficient for light detection across much of the visible light spectrum, they have a larger detection area (more pixels), have more rapid frame rates and are even less expensive than EMCCD cameras. Their noise response has improved to the point where they surpass EMCCD detection for all but the faintest samples. Thus this new camera will enhance NSERC discovery grant funded research on fluorescence fluctuation imaging of fluorescent probe kinetics, transport measurements mapping movements of fluorescent biomolecule in cells and even allow sub-diffraction resolution imaging and single molecule localization via sensitive and rapid imaging of fluorescent probe emission blinking. It will foster the continuation and expansion of our own NSERC supported research projects and collaborations which all depend on quantitative fluorescence microscopy imaging which is the core of our lab.