Zebrafish brain, 70 nm thick section, image acquired with MultiSEM 506 covering a hexagonal field of view of 200 µm x 180 µm at 5 nm pixel size. Courtesy of Christel Genoud, Friedrich-Miescher-Institute, Basel, Switzerland
At the annual Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, in October 2015, the company Zeiss presented a new variant of the world’s fastest scanning electron microscope: ZEISS MultiSEM 506 features 91 beams working in parallel and increases the throughput of the predecessor model by a factor of three.
The unrivaled net acquisition speed of more than 2 Tera pixel per hour enables large-scaled experiments such as imaging of cubic millimeters of brain tissue at nanometer resolution for the analysis of neural circuits. For the research work conducted as part of numerous brain initiatives this will speed up the ability to map whole areas of the brain to understand the neuronal network.
ZEISS MultiSEM 506
The ZEISS MultiSEM 505 and 506 are designed for continual operation and fitted with intuitive Software which provides new features like automated section detection of serial tissue sections. A first prototype of the novel MultiSEM has already been installed at Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich earlier this year.
The new product demonstrated that the multi-beam technology is scalable and will satisfy future throughput needs also in other fields, for example in semiconductor applications.
