Jan. 2, 2007 — PI (Physik Instrumente) L.P., an Auburn, Mass., manufacturer of nanopositioning and precision motion-control equipment for life science, photonics and semiconductor applications, announced it is offering a series of high-speed microscopy objective scanner systems for 3-D microscopy applications.

These PIFOC piezo Z-drive systems are designed for easy integration into high-resolution microscopes. They are available as components or as complete systems including the piezo objective scanner, a controller and two distance cases.

The PIFOC units are intended to be ideal for high speed Z-stack image acquisition, the basis for the generation of 3-D views of samples in high-resolution, optical microscopes. Conventional Z-drives use a motorized actuator and motor controller to create numerous focus planes during focusing. The individual “slices” are then processed with special software to form one 3-D image. PIFOC systems are compatible with all major image acquisition packages.

Piezo-actuated Z-drives, achieve significantly higher focusing speed (typically 10 msec vs. 100 msec) and resolution (typically 1 nm vs. 100 nm) than stepper motor-drives and thus provide higher-quality images in less time.