SeeNano in Comparison

Products

Features Compared	Conventional Optical	SeeNano Lab Series			SeeNano Pro Series
	Microscopes	Lab-U	Lab-I	Lab-T	Pro-U	Pro-I	Pro-T
Resolution Incident	Theoretically, 200nm Practically ~ 400nm	n.a.	<200nm		<100nm	<100nm
Resolution Transmitted				200nm	100nm		100nm
True magnification limit	800x (dry), 1600x (oil)	Up to 4500x (dry)			Greater than 8000x (dry)
Numerical Aperture	0.95 (dry), 1.40 (oil) N.A.	0.85 to 0.9 N.A. (dry)			0.85 to 0.95 N.A. (dry)
True color contrast	None at high mag.	Full, even at high mag.			Full, even at high mag.
White light source	Yes, for low res. only	Yes, even at max. res.			Yes, even at max. res.
Variable DOF	Low DOF, fixed	Low to extreme DOF			Low to extreme DOF
Contour sharpness	Poor at high mag.	High at all mag.			High at all mag.
Reflection free	No	Yes			Yes
Staining (etc.) required	Staining required	Staining not necessary			Staining not necessary
Oil immersion required	Yes, beyond 0.95 N.A.	No, max. 0.95 N.A. needed			No, 0.95 N.A./extended WD
Brightfield	Yes	Yes			Yes
Darkfield	Yes	Yes, but Grayfield better			Yes, but Grayfield better
Grayfield	No	Yes, with full color contrast			Yes, with full color contrast
Phase Contrast	Yes	Improved, with contour sharpness			Improved, with contour sharpness
Living samples in vitro	Yes, for limited time	Yes, for extended periods			Yes, for extended periods when used with our chambers
Sample warmth level	Up to 60° C over room temp.	Up to 3° C over room temp.			Up to 3° C over room temp.
Transparent samples	Not possible	Yes, incl. absolute transp.			Yes, incl. absolute transp.

Notes:

Resolution values given for the SeeNano microscopes relate to the practical achievable resolution. The maximum theoretical (although not achievable) resolution is 10nm with the Grayfield Lens System.

The standard methods of measuring magnification in microscopes becomes too inaccurate beyond 1500x. We therefore determine the precise magnification factor by imaging a calibrated test slide with nanometer scale and printing that image on 10x15cm paper. The enlargement factor in relation to the grid is then used to calculate the actual magnification factor. Every objective combination is tested so that we can provide exact magnification ratios. As there are no parallax errors with our systems, it is possible to measure distance in any direction.

For each microscope, there are a wide range of dry objectives available to match your application, e.g. 2,5x, 4x, 10x, 20x, 40x, 60x, 80x, 100x with n.A. up to 0.95 - some with extended working distance (WD). As the costs of the individual objectives vary widely according to their specifications, general price quotes are not meaningful before your exact requirements have been determined.

The SeeNano Lab series, has been optimized to make it an affordable alternative to those considering high quality conventional optical microscope systems, yet with an image quality, depth of field and color contrast that is considerably better and especially suitable for live blood and live cell analysis. For technical reasons, it is not feasible to provide a SeeNano Lab microscope with both incident and tranmitted light in one unit (costs would be higher than two individual microscopes).