Sole Source Purchase of Advanced Microscope System

The University of New Mexico is seeking to purchase an advanced microscope system that provides high-resolution images in living tissue, beyond the resolution limit of traditional light microscopes. The system is required for studies to understand fundamental brain physiology and mechanisms involved in brain injury and repair. The proposed system is a Stimulated Emission-Depletion (STED) microscope with adaptive optics-based aberration correction, adaptive illumination, and integrated 2 photon laser for optical sectioning. The system will be used by a diverse user group in the CoBRE-funded core facility. • The system will provide high-resolution images in living tissue, beyond the resolution limit of traditional light microscopes. • The system features adaptive optics-based aberration correction, using deformable mirrors to dynamically compensate for spherical aberrations in real-time. • The system has adaptive illumination, which ensures low phototoxicity using highly sensitive APD detection and a software-driven automatic decision process. • The system includes an integrated multiphoton laser for 2P-STED allowing axial resolution improvements in both the excitation and emission pathways.