Hamamatsu-photonics K.k.

Riken Corporation

Masafumi Oshiro

Atsushi Miyawaki

Shigeru Uchiyama

Koji Ichie

Masahiko Hirano

Yuichi Toyoda

Jeremy Cooke

Yoshinori Hashimoto

An image acquisition apparatusA includes a sample stagefor placing a sample S thereon, an image pickup devicecapable of acquiring a two-dimensional image and TDI driving, an image pickup optical systemincluding an objective lens, a scanning unit for acquiring an observation image while scanning the sample S by the image pickup deviceand the image pickup optical system, and a focus oscillation control devicefor controlling oscillation of a focus in the sample S so that an image pickup focus in the sample S oscillates at an oscillation frequency fs in an optical axis direction. The focus oscillation control devicesets the oscillation frequency fs so that the oscillation frequency fs substantially coincides with Ns times (Ns is an integer not less than 1) the basic frequency, which is a reciprocal 1/Ti of an image pickup period Ti of TDI driving in the image pickup device. Thus, an image acquisition apparatus capable of efficiently acquiring an observation image with focus extended can be realized.

Image-acquisition device

A microscope system is constructed by a light guiding optical systemhaving an objective lensand beam splittersandfor splitting an optical image of a sample S, a photodetectorfor acquiring an image of the sample S, and two CCD camerasandfor focus control disposed on optical paths split by the beam splittersand. The camerasandare disposed being inclined with respect to the optical path so that the optical paths thereof in the light guiding optical systemvary along a z-axis direction in opposite directions to each other. Images acquired by these camerasandare analyzed in a focus controller, and the image pickup focal point to the sample S is controlled on the basis of the analysis result, whereby the focus control when an image of the sample is acquired can be suitably performed.

Microscope system

An image acquiring apparatus for acquiring images of a sample includes a macro image acquiring unitfor acquiring a macro image of the sample, a dark field light sourceto be used for acquiring a dark field macro image of the sample as a macro image, a macro image processing unitwhich generates a reference macro image by processing image data of the macro image, and an image pickup condition setting unitwhich sets an image acquiring range corresponding to a range including an object of image acquisition as an image pickup condition of a micro image of the sample by referring to the reference macro image. This realizes an image acquiring apparatus, an image acquiring method, and an image acquiring program by which a macro image of a sample as an object of image acquisition is preferably acquired.

Image acquiring apparatus including macro image acquiring and processing portions, image acquiring method, and image acquiring program

An analyzer for measuring an FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) efficiency of a specimen containing a donor and an acceptor. The analyzer has an illuminator, an optical system, a detector and a calculator. The illuminator emits light for donor excitation and acceptor bleaching. The detector detects fluorescence from the specimen. The calculator calculates the FRET efficiency using the output of the detector. The detector independently detects the fluorescence in wavelength regions. One of the regions has a larger overlap with the fluorescence spectrum of the acceptor than with that of the donor.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer analyzer

A microscope system comprises a light guiding optical systemcontaining an objective lensand a beam splitterfor splitting an optical image of a sample S to a first optical path and a second optical path, a photodetectordisposed on the first optical path used to acquire an image of the sample S, and a CCD cameradisposed on the second optical path for acquiring a two-dimensional image for focus control. The camerais disposed being inclined at an angle of &#x3b8; with respect to the optical path so that the optical path length in the light guiding optical systemvaries along the z-axis direction. The image acquired by the camerais analyzed by a focus controller, and the focal point for image pickup with respect to the sample S is controlled on the basis of the analysis result. Accordingly, there can be implemented a microscope system in which image acquisition of the sample and focus control for image pickup can be simultaneously performed.

Growing community of inventors

Hamamatsu, Japan

Masafumi Oshiro