pco.panda 4.2 MP back-illuminated sCMOS camera for low-light imaging

Click2Contact

The latest pco.panda 4.2 MP back-illuminated (bi) camera can provide a quantum efficiency of up to 95%, making it suitable for demanding lighting conditions in microscopy and life science applications — even without active cooling. The high resolution and 6.5 x 6.5 μm² pixel size provide good detail diversity and highly qualitative images. The USB 3.1 interface provides direct power delivery via the USB cable.

The compact camera measures 65 x 65 x 65 mm³ and incorporates the latest 16 bit sCMOS sensor technology delivering high resolution of 2048 x 2048 pixels, in conjunction with a 6.5 x 6.5 µm² pixel size. It has the capability to capture full resolution images at 40 fps and offers exposure times between 100 µs and 5 s.

When the low-light mode is activated, both the high and low gain A/D converter are used as high gain, which means they digitise low-intensity pixel values only. The PCO light-sheet scanning mode is a special readout mode dedicated to light-sheet microscopy and is based on the rolling shutter mode in which the readout direction of the sensor is from top to bottom. The standard line time value is 12 μs and it can be set from this camera-specific line time up to 2 ms. Compared to the standard operation mode, the light-sheet scanning mode enables the selection of the parameters ‘Line Time’ and ‘Exposure Lines’. This enables an optimised synchronisation to an existing light-sheet setup which has no selectable speed or timing. It is possible to set a delay prior to the exposure start (‘delay lines’).

The pco.panda 4.2 MP back-illuminated (bi) camera is useful for low-light microscopy applications such as GSDIM, PALM, STORM, SPIM, SIM, live cell microscopy, single molecule detection, light-sheet microscopy, spinning disk confocal microscopy, FRET, FRAP, fluorescence spectroscopy, bio- and chemi-luminescence and high content screening.