No. With the Nanoimager’s unique vibration dampening design, you don’t need an optical table.

No. The Nanoimager is a class 1 laser product and so can be used in a standard lab without specific laser training.

55kg for the entire system.

The Nanoimager works optimally with #1.5H coverslips, which have 170µm thickness. 

The most popular chambers are:

• ibidi (µ-Slide 8 Well Glass Bottom, No. 1.5) ]
• Lab-Tek (Nunc™ Lab-Tek™ II Chambered cover-glass, No. 1.5)
• 35 mm petri dishes with #1.5 cover-glass bottom

Sample chambers/coverslips must be less than 97mm long, 35mm wide and 13mm in height (customizable).

Both methods can be used. Antibodies directly coupled to the fluorochromes are not compulsory, but primary antibodies do have a higher degree of accuracy on the location of proteins. Check out our guide to sample preparation for more information.

Yes. The Nanoimager is capable of live imaging and acquiring multi-positions data through the following features:

• Whole microscope unit heating up to 37°C
• External port that is compatible with microfluidics / CO₂ feed
• Software support: time-lapse, multi-position and Z-stack

Yes. The Nanoimager supports temperature in the range of +20°C to 45°C. To warm up from room temperature to 37°C only takes approximately 40 minutes.

Yes. The Nanoimager can image up to 4 colors by imaging two channels at the same time; which means you can perform 2-color imaging followed by 2-color imaging in two different channels. You can also program the lasers to run a sequence of on/off for each laser line.

Yes. The X-Y and the Z position can be scanned through several mm [20 mm x 20 mm x 10 mm (X, Y, Z)].

Yes. The software allows you to export the tiled overview scan at the resolution it was taken.

Yes. For smFRET, we typically use TIRF mode to analyze biomolecule interactions on the coverslip surface or the surface of the cell.

We recommend AlexaFluor™ 647, AlexaFluor™ 555, ATTO488, DyLight550 for dSTORM, together with ONI BCubed dSTORM buffer. Check out our guide.

Imaging time depends on the type of sample and technique, for example: 

• for a typical dSTORM acquisition: 30 ms exposure time for 30,000 frames = 15 minutes
• for a typical smFRET acquisition: 100 ms for 1000 frames = 100 seconds

Yes. You can adjust the imaging mode to get the best signal-to-noise ratio for your sample, with a single click.

We image up to 1µm depth.

The size of the video files is generally several GB for standard single-molecule imaging.

We can look into the distribution of diffusion coefficients, stokes diameter, concentration of species and the type of diffusions (confined/random/directional) by looking at the individual tracks.

You can track these particles and structures by adjusting the default localization fitting and filtering parameters.

We do single-molecule FRET, which enables identification of single molecules or molecular complexes and measurements of the stoichiometry, distances, reaction kinetics and many others parameters.

We get values for FRET efficiency, donor and acceptor emission levels, which can be easily exported in an *.csv format.

We use the oil immersion 100x 1.4 NA from Olympus. Customers can also enquire about other options.

The stage is a closed-loop piezo stage for all X, Y and Z directions. The stage is the most precise on the market and offers 1nm precision and 30nm reproducibility.

200g is the maximum weight for the stage.

We use the sCMOS Orca flash 4 V3 (in NimS) and Orca flash4  LT+ (in NimX). Check out our models here.

100 frames per second with full chip. It can be faster by cropping an area or region of interest.

The Nanoimager supports one camera, and the system is configured to capture two different colors at the same time, with a very large field of view per channel (50µm x80µm).

The Nanoimager holds up to four lasers.

The Nanoimager can be configured with lasers such that the power density is > 10kW/cm²

This depends on wavelength, but on average the lifetime is 10,000 hours.

Yes. Lasers of the same wavelength can be swapped by opening up the light engine. You will not require a service engineer for this. However, you cannot swap to a different laser wavelength since we have a fixed pre-chosen configuration.

Yes. The Nanoimager (21cm x 15cm x 21cm) and has approximately the same footprint as a piece of A4 paper. The light engine is 21cm x 42cm x 45cm and they are attached to each other by a 1.5m cable.

Yes. We want users to get the most out of the data, so it is saved for export in standard file formats (*.tiff and *.csv).

No. The Nanoimager software is designed to support all standard analysis needs.

Yes. A Python interface can be used to write custom scripts to control hardware and analyze data from within the Nanoimager application.

Currently, the Nanoimager software is available for Windows.

No, not for analysis. The NimOS software runs on most modern computers, running 64-bit Windows 10. We supply a high-spec laptop with each Nanoimager and this is included in the price.

Laser combinations can be switched sequentially to allow for 3 color experiments using NimOS.