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First practical LED light source for fluorescence microscopy makes its debut at MICROSCIENCE 2006

A new LED light source for fluorescence microscopes that offers many advantages over conventional light sources will make its debut at the MICROSCIENCE 2006 exhibition to be held at ExCeL on June 27th - 29th.

Despite their inherent advantages over traditional mercury based light sources, until now LEDs have not been bright enough to be used as the light source of fluorescence microscopes. Now, because of the development of new LED array technology, the COOLLED PrecisExcite is the first commercially viable unit of its kind and is designed to work with all types of fluorescence microscopes.

The advantage of using an LED light source
LEDs have many advantages over conventional light sources. They produce an immediate and consistent light source over a narrow bandwidth, the brightness can be easily controlled, no warm up period is required, they are significantly more efficient, need no maintenance and use no consumables. In addition, they avoid the health and environmental hazards associated with mercury lamps and, as they operate from a low voltage supply, are inherently safe.

Cost of ownership is very low compared with mercury lamps. The PrecisExcite has a 'light-on' lifetime of over 10,000 hours whereas mercury lamps have a comparatively short life that is further reduced each time it is switched on and off. In addition, the microscope may have to be recalibrated after the bulb has been changed so adding to the operating cost.

The PrecisExcite produces three separate selectable wavelengths that match the most commonly used fluorescence dyes and a great advantage to the microscopist is that the wavelength is highly repeatable, does not change with ageing and has a fast switching rate and so helps to avoid photo bleaching.

Mercury lamps produce a wide spectrum of light and so require a filter system to block out unwanted light and isolate the required wavelength. Because of the narrow bandwidth of the LED source there is no need for filters, which inevitably let through some unwanted light, thus improving performance in terms of signal to noise ratio.

Nick Edwards, technical director of COOLLED, said: "This represents a major breakthrough in fluorescence microscopy. People have been working with LEDs in this field for many years but it is only now, following the development of new COOLLED technology, that we can build arrays with sufficient light output to make them practical to work in this type of application."

About COOLLED
COOLLED, a company within the CIL group, developed COOLLED technology in 2005.

This revolutionary, patent pending, process created new format LED arrays with sufficient power to make them suitable for UV curing in a wide range of applications in both the industrial and scientific markets. LED UV curing has low cost of ownership, produces an immediate and consistent light source with a lifetime of over 10,000 hours and has many practical benefits over conventional light sources.

COOLLED's parent company, Custom Interconnect Limited, was formed in 1987 and provides an expert contract manufacturing and design service with a high level of expertise and manufacturing capability in niche micro-electronic applications.
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