When the Movable Objective Microscope® (MOM®) was being developed at Max Planck Institute, Winfried Denk turned to Sutter for its experience in precision machining and 3D stepper-motor control to prototype the first two-photon moving objective microscope. The Sutter MOM rapidly grew to be the standard for two-photon in vivo microscopy. The open frame structure of this scope gives it unsurpassed flexibility, allowing for a range of configurations.
Recently, this open frame has fostered near continuous development of the three-photon, 3P-MOM. We have made modifications to the excitation path to allow the usage of a new scan and tube lens with longer transmission and modified our short path detector to better collect scattered photons.
Building on the successful design of the MOM, Sutter created the SOM® - simple moving microscope. In the SOM, Sutter followed the lead of customers who requested a low-cost, robotic microscope with the versatility of the MOM. The SOM was designed with electrophysiology in mind and is an appropriate platform for in vivo or brain slice preparations with little or no modification. The SOM uses the popular MP-285 as its mechanical base, and Sutter has designed a variety of adapters for video cameras, objective flippers, and illumination sources.
The DF-Scope™ is another customer-inspired microscope design. Rather than a complete microscope, this package adds multiphoton imaging capability to the ubiquitous Olympus BX51WI upright microscope. Many laboratories already have BX51WI microscopes for use in electrophysiology and epifluorescent imaging experiments. The DF-Scope package provides the necessary optics and electronics for the BX51WI to be used for multiphoton imaging (with the addition of a Ti:Sapphire laser and scanning software). The design incorporates subassemblies from the MOM including resonant and galvo scan boxes and controllers, detector paths, PMTs, PMT power supplies, scan lens and tube lens.
Our latest offering, the BOB open-design upright microscope, incorporates the Olympus vertical illuminator and objectives. By simplifying the microscope to its bare essentials, we've created a much more flexible and open system that can be used for a variety of applications.
Rounding out our microscope line is a growing list of stand-alone accessories for two-photon and other microscopes. Components available as stand-alone include MCS, the MScan software suite with PC workstation and data acquisition cards, RESSCANNER, an ultra quiet resonant scan box and controller that is available as a MOM upgrade or a generic version that can be used in home built scopes, PS-2 and PS-2/LV, two different dual power supplies for PMTs and finally a small selection of Hamamatsu PMTs.