Edinburgh Instruments, a Scottish company that has been a leading manufacturer of high-performance molecular spectroscopy instruments for nearly 50 years, has launched a new product. This is the RM5 , a compact, fully automated confocal Raman microscope for analytical and research purposes. This new Raman microscope builds on expertise and proven spectroscopic techniques combined with a state-of-the-art optical design providing high precision spectral resolution (1.4 cm-1 FWHM) over the entire spectral range of 50 cm-1 - 4000 cm-1, high spatial resolution to resolve details down to 1 µm and high measurement sensitivity to detect even the faintest Raman signals. One of the many advantages of this microscope is its ease of use and user-friendly software that allows control of all components of the microscope system.
Key Features:
- Confocal - Variability in slit size and adjustable pinhole settings provide higher resolution, suppression of background signals caused by fluorescence (mostly in biological samples) and optimization for the application.
- Integration of up to three narrowband, computer-controlled lasers with software selectable wavelengths combined with computer-controlled laser power per sample
- Turret to diffraction grating with 5 positions - for high spectral resolution of 1.4 cm-1 (FWHM) and optimization over the entire spectral range 50 cm-1 - 4000 cm-1
- Ability to integrate up to 2 detectors, including high efficiency CCD, EMCCD and InGaAs detectors for low noise, high sensing speed, high sensitivity and wide spectral range
- Highest quality and accuracy of acquired data thanks to integrated internal standards:
- Wavelength calibration (Neon standard)
- Raman shift calibration (Si standard)
- Sensitivity verification (Si standard)
- Automatic laser beam positioning
- Motorized turret with 4 filter positions - fully automated carousel for edge and notch filters to achieve Raman spectral range
- Integrated spectrograph with asymmetric Czerny-Turner design and 225 mm focal length
- Raman mapping - provides chemical and physical property information across the entire sample, allowing the identity and presence of a specific component, its location and distribution in the sample. With Raman mapping, differences in structure or in stress and strain in specific areas of the sample can be detected. Tissues, whole cells or individual cellular components can be imaged without the need for fluorescent dyes
- The system includes a high-performance Olympus BX53 upright microscope providing a range of sample visualization and contrast techniques - brightfield, darkfield, polarization microscopy, DIC and fluorescence. Also included is a manual or fully motorised, software-controlled stage for mapping regions of interest on a given sample
- The system also comes standard with a built-in high-resolution CMOS camera for field of view, sample setup and laser beam alignment. For even higher resolution and stitching of images obtained during Raman mapping, a second camera can be added to the trinocular microscope head
- Also included is the user-friendly Ramacle® software - a powerful software package for complete system control, data acquisition, display and analysis. An optional add-on module for chemometric analysis of spectra and other upgrades is available.
- Optional accessories enable polarization analysis of Raman spectra providing insight into the symmetry of vibrational modes, orientation of individual crystals, polycrystalline samples and anisotropic materials