Sheet light microscope (Villejuif)

Light-Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy (LSFM) is a type of fluorescence microscopy based on the selective illumination of a single plane of interest by a sheet of light, i.e. a laser beam focused in one direction and collimated in the other. It is usually created by a cylindrical lens and projected into the sample through a first objective. The fluorophores inside this sheet are excited and emit light collected by a second objective1. This method allows the image of a plane to be acquired at once instead of acquiring a point-by-point image as is the case in scanning microscopes, and is therefore fundamentally faster. As the total amount of light absorbed by the sample is lower, the result is less phototoxicity and less photobleaching. This illumination also creates an optical sectioning that allows better axial resolution than epifluorescence microscopes.

Applications

The sample is illuminated by a sheet or sheet of light measuring 0.4×2 mm.This form of excitation allows thick biological samples to be “imaged” very quickly, previously rendered transparent.

  • Fast and dynamic cell imaging
  • Neuronal Activité
  • Fluorescence imaging of marine organisms
  • Live 3D imaging of cell cultures
  • Ultra-fast volumetric imaging of fluorescent samples