Flatness of Dichroic Beamsplitters Affects Focus and Image Quality

Even though fluorescence microscopy has become a routine technique for many applications, demanding requirements from technological advances continue to push the limits. For example, today biological researchers are not only interested in looking at fixed-cell samples labeled with multiple colors, but they are also interested in looking at the dynamics of live specimens in multiple colors, simultaneously. Even certain fixed-cell imaging applications are hampered by limited throughput of the conventional multicolor imaging techniques. Given that the most popular multicolor fluorescence imaging configurations – including “Sedat” and “Pinkel” – are often too slow, new multicolor imaging approaches are evolving.