The HydraTM Multiprobe BioImaging NSOM SPM has been selected from among one-hundred applicants as a finalist in the Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation, in the Life Sciences category.
 
The Prism Awards - presented by SPIE and Laurin Publishing - recognize excellence in new product innovation within the industry.The HydraTM has been touted by SPIE and Laurin as "an example of excellent technical achievement, efficient and repeatable methodology, and forward thinking."

Winners will be announced during the Awards Ceremony during the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco, CA, January 27, 2010.

For more information about the awards: http://www.photonicsprismaward.com/index.aspx

More About the HydraTM

BioAFMs on the market today are seriously limited by geometric and optical obstruction and interference. Thus, BioAFMs cannot be integrated into upright microscopes or advanced concepts in optical microscopy such as 4pi configurations or many non-linear optical protocols. In addition, studying samples such as single molecules on opaque substrates or simultaneously investigating optically and with AFM, highly scattering samples such as biological tissue have been impossible. Furthermore, all BioAFMs today suffer from optical interference from the feedback mechanism used. The Nanonics Hydra resolves all of these and many other limitations in BioAFM, thus opening new horizons for the application of AFM in biology. The ground up design of The Hydra provides no geometric or optical obstruction or interference either from above or below the SPM system.

The Hydra incorporates, for the first time, the critically acclaimed tuning fork feedback mechanism which provides UltraSensitive Liquid Cell operation for new sensitivities in AC force spectroscopy.

The Hydra with its ground breaking Tuning Fork Liquid Cell also permits Nanonics to now offer its singular innovation of MultiProbe Atomic Force Microscopy to the BioAFM researcher allowing for new directions in BioAFM imaging and manipulation.

The Hydra comes with a NanoToolKit of glass based probes including transparent AFM probes and nanopipette probes for conductance and futuristic structurally correlated patch clamp applications. This complements Nanonics’ unique probes for thermal conductivity as well as electrical and scanning electrochemical microscopy.

The Hydra with its fully optically integrated, non-interfering design is ideal for all modes of optical microscopy including standard fluorescence techniques, confocal, TIRF, FRET and DIC. Nanonics is also renowned in NSOM and AFM Raman combinations with tip enhanced Raman scattering. The Hydra is unique in its ability to provide such advanced chemical imaging without limitation to the microscope or the microRaman platform used.

Click here to see the HydraTM featured in Microscopy and Analysis.