LSM 880 with Airyscan FAST

The Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (LSM) has become one of the most popular instruments in basic biomedical research for fluorescence imaging. The main reason LSM has become so popular is that the technique affords researchers images with high contrast and a versatile optical sectioning capability to investigate three dimensional biological structures [1]. The optical sectioning ability of an LSM is a product of scanning a diffraction limited spot, produced by a focused laser spot, across a sample to create an image one point at a time. The generated fluorescence from each point is collected by the imaging objective and results from fluorophores in the sample that reside both in the desired plane of focus and in out of focus planes. In order to separate the fluorescence emitted from the desired focal plane, an aperture (pinhole) is positioned in the light path to block all out of focus light from reaching the detector (traditionally a PMT) [2]. Based on the application needs, LSM offers tremendous flexibility to fit experimental requirements, such as the choice of the excitation laser wavelengths and scanner movement; magnification and resolution of objective lenses as well as the type and arrangement of the detectors. Hence LSMs can be used to image diverse samples from whole organisms to large tissue sections to single cells and their compartments, labeled with numerous fluorescent markers of diverse emission intensities.