Andor Dragonfly 200/ 400/ 600 Confocal Microscope

Dragonfly spinning disk confocal delivers leading performance for industrial and academic users. Its modular design adds functionality and capability at each level.

• Dragonfly 200 delivers high-performance spinning disk confocal imaging of all (thick, thin, fixed and live) biological samples. High-resolution image stacks are ready for analysis in mere seconds.
• Dragonfly 400 combines the High Power Laser Engine (HLE) and the 3D super-resolution module to provide powerful hardware to address more applications such as 3D widefield Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (in DNA-PAINT), as well as higher productivity in both spatial omics and large sample imaging.
• Dragonfly 600 adds Borealis-TIRF and zoom illumination optics imaging functionality to make a complete multi-modal system for Widefield, Confocal, TIRF, and SMLM (DNA-PAINT & dSTORM) applications. Dragonfly 600 has achieved impressive resolutions down to 6 nm (DNA-PAINT)² and allows SMLM in any imaging modality (confocal, widefield or B-TIRF). Andor’s patented Borealis-TIRF exploits patented Borealis® illumination, delivering robust, even illumination and thus more usable data across the field of view.

Dragonfly 600 spinning disk confocal delivers leading performance for both industrial and academic users. It integrates super-resolution solutions compatible with confocal, widefield or TIRF. Furthermore, it incorporates the newly developed High Power Laser Engine (HLE) and new TIRF imaging modality, which exploits Borealis® illumination, B-TIRF (Borealis TIRF) for easy setup, more even illumination and thus more usable data across the field of view.

Key Specifications:

✔️Instant confocal: up to 400 fps
✔️Borealis® uniform illumination
✔️3D SMLM: resolution to 10-20 nm
✔️Live cell super-resolution: SRRF-Stream+
✔️Unique easy-to-use TIRF: B-TIRF
✔️Broad wavelength range: UV-Vis to NIR
✔️Greater productivity: large field of view

Key Applications:
✔️Developmental, cell & neurobiology
✔️Cancer & oncobiology
✔️Microbiology & virology
✔️Organoids & large model organisms
✔️Spatial genomics & proteomics
✔️Multiplex & Expansion microscopy
✔️Plant biology

Modalities: Combining Confocal Microscopy with Super-Resolution

Confocal

At its core, Dragonfly, is a multi-point confocal for high-speed and high-sensitivity imaging.

• Capture at speeds at least 10x faster than conventional confocal technology​
• Optimal solution for live cell imaging, providing low phototoxicity and photobleaching
• Perfect for fast volume acquisition of large samples (either live or fixed)

B-TIRF

Borealis Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (B-TIRF) is Andor’s proprietary TIRF module available on Dragonfly 600.

• TIRF imaging with reduced Aberration
• Supports both 60x and 100x TIRF objective lenses
• High-quality results with a simple set up
• Image dynamic events at the edge of the coverslip (e.g. membrane fusion events, receptor signaling, and infection dynamics)
• Ideal to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in single-molecule imaging

SM – TIRF                                                                                   B-TIRF

Comparing conventional TIRF and Borealis TIRF: Left image: single mode TIRF is sensitive to optical contamination resulting in interference fringes and uneven illumination. Right image: the same specimen imaged in B-TIRF with contamination, results in high quality images which reflect the true distribution of fluorescence in the specimen.

Localization Microscopy: 3D-SMLM