Nano-Cyte^® Eliminates Drift

Any drift in a fluorescence imaging experiment can blur and distort images, cause images to go out of focus, and limit the duration of experiments. The Nano-Cyte^® stabilization system eliminates microscope drift. With Nano-Cyte^® you no longer need to be concerned with temperature gradients, sample drift, and microscope drift.

Nano-Cyte^® is Image-Centric

The data set for an imaging experiment is the image. The "image is everything". The only microscope drift that affects the data is the relative motion of the image of the sample with respect to the image sensor on the detector (camera).

Nano-Cyte^® patented technology eliminates microscope drift by referencing the image of a fluorescent fiduciary within the sample and localizing it in three dimensions. The Nano-Cyte® uses this 3D localization information to provide active position adjustments to the sample. The active adjustment eliminates all relevant drift in the experiment to within ±10 nanometers in X and Y, and ± 20 nanometers in Z. Nano-Cyte^®LC can correct for drift over a period of days, enabling long term imaging. The elimination of drift is an important step in advancing the capabilities of single molecule imaging.

Integrated Software and Hardware Solution
	Video: Nano-Cyte®LC 3D Image Stabilization System
Nano-Cyte® is an integrated suite of high precision piezo and motor driven motion control systems with automated, active stabilization software. The diagram shows the operation of Nano-Cyte®'s feedback control system. The stability is monitored through the imaging pathway for image-centric stabilization and drift elimination.

Features High precision motion control hardware including low drift XY micropositioner and closed loop XYZ nanopositioner for comprehensive control over sample position Compatible with most commercial inverted microscopes and Mad City Labs' RM21™ imaging platform Compatible with Andor, Hamamatsu, and Photometrics cameras Automatic detection of Mad City Labs Cyto-Lite™ multi-color laser source Adaptable to custom DLLs to control external hardware, e.g. AOTFs 4 configurable TTL outputs to interface with other hardware Automatic detection of candidate fiducials Candidate fiduciary statistics updated every second Automatic Z calibration with user configurable parameters Option to save fiduciary and calibration statistics charts Automatic pixel size detection Image display once per second Snapshot button to capture images at any time outside of a routine TIFF image format Experimental routines can include image capture frames away from the fiduciary Drift display and logging during experimental routines

Nano-Cyte^® is an integrated suite of high precision piezo and motor driven motion control systems with automated, active stabilization software. The Nano-Cyte^® has been designed to interface with external hardware components such as EMCCD cameras, light sources and shutters.

Hardware
The Nano-Cyte^® is comprised of a high performance three axis nanopositioning system coupled with a two axis motorized micro-positioning stage. The nanopositioner is a flexure based piezoactuated design with integrated PicoQ^® sensors for absolute position sensing and nanometer precision under closed loop control. The micropositioning stage enables the user to have a large range of travel for surveying samples prior to engaging the active stabilization. All motion devices are controlled by the Nano-Cyte^® controller. The controller is USB 2.0 enabled and can additionally control other user devices such as EMCCD cameras, lasers and shutters.

Software
The Nano-Cyte^® software is available as a stand-alone program that performs the image analysis and position feedback to achieve three dimensional nanometer stability over long time periods. It can simultaneously be used to perform experiments with advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques. Nano-Cyte^® is also available as a DLL, which allows access to Nano-Cyte^® technology from Windows user mode applications and provides access to most of the functionality of the Mad City Labs stand-alone Nano-Cyte^® application. The DLL exposes the localization algorithms, find fiducial algorithms, and control loop adjustments. This enables commercial applications such as LabView, Metamorph, or other proprietary OEM software to control image acquisition and hardware while running Nano-Cyte^® stabilization in the background of the application. The use of the DLL is simple, in that the OEM or customer software acquires the image, and passes that image to the Nano-Cyte^® DLL for analysis. The Nano-Cyte^® DLL returns a feedback signal to stabilize the system with the Nano-Cyte^® hardware.

Image stability data measured over 44 hours. The red line indicates the measured drift. The blue line indicates the stabilized position when using Nano-Cyte^®.

Stability
X-axis	± 10 nm
Y-Axis	± 10 nm
Z-axis	± 25 nm
Tracking Speed/Drift Rate Compensation	10nm/sec
Dynamic Temperature Range	18°C - 37°C

Hardware Specifications
Nanopositioning Range of Motion	200 μm × 200 μm × 200 μm
Resolution	0.4 nm
Step Size	3 nm
Micropositioning Range of Motion	25 mm x 25 mm
Resolution	20 nm
Step Size	95 nm
Controller	Nano-Cyte®
Interface	USB 16 bit DAC
TTL	4 channels

Compatibility
Microscope Compatibility	Nikon Ti, TE Series
	Zeiss Axio Series
	Olympus IX Series
Supported EMCCD Camera types	Andor
	Photometrics
	Hamamatsu
Maximum Frame Rate	10 frames/sec
Power Supply	90 to 260 VAC (50/60Hz)
Communication	USB
Operating System	Windows 2000/XP Pro/Vista/7