Structured illumination spinning disk microscopy

Unitylife

Complete confocal microscope for live cell imaging.

Introducing the Aurox Unitylife, a new breed of all-in-one, compact laser-free confocal microscope system designed for ease of access and ease of use in your laboratory, at your bench.

Unity brings together in one fully integrated, compact and easy to use microscope, everything you need for live-cell confocal imaging.


Ideal for live-cell imaging

in a socially distanced World

With it's go anywhere design and integrated vibration dampening, Unity is ideal for use in the light and airy open laboratory, being:

  • Compact and self contained;
  • Easy to use with minimal interaction;
  • Easy to move and locate;
  • Easy to maintain / clean;
  • Plug and play.



Flexible and adaptable

Unity for all your imaging experiments:


Tap, Drag, Swipe

with Unity's iOS software

Unity iOS provides all the functionality required for the set-up, control and review of confocal and widefield imaging experiments in a quick and easy to use iPAD application.

Imaging is easy with Unity.

Simply:

  • Tap
  • Drag
  • Swipe


Aurox Unity iPAD blue and red channel mouse kidney confocal


Do your plates and dishes

slides too, with Unity sample holders

Unity is supplied with three interchangeable sample holders allowing you to image all your samples, whether they are mounted in multi-well plates, petri-dishes or slides.

Each of the Unity sample holders has a retention system to hold the sample securely in the holder and a three point magnetic location system which connects to Unity's XY stage on loading. This system ensures the sample holder position is securely held throughout imaging experiments.



Tap into digital control

with Unity's iPAD Pro

Unity comes complete with an iPad Pro tablet computer for full fingertip control.

The iPAD communicates directly with Unity over a dedicated and secure private wireless connection, issuing commands and visualising data saved on Unity's built in image server.

For speed of data stream response, images are optimised for fast feedback and display on the iPAD. The full high resolution collected images are permanently stored on Unity's internal server.

The iPAD works as a remote control, issuing commands and receiving feedback. All command actions are controlled by Unity's internal control software and firmware.




See the light

with Unity's bright, safe, LED

Our spinning disk confocal technology is upto 50% more light efficient than our competitors, meaning Lasers are not needed.

Instead, Unity uses a built in multi-spectral LED light source of high brightness and based on the CoolLED pE-300Ultra, making Unity:

  • Free from laser safety restrictions;
  • Low photo-toxicity;
  • Low photo-bleaching;
  • Low maintenance;
  • Low cost of ownership.

Save the World

with the CAT-3 ready Unity

The compact and fully integrated design of Unity makes it the ideal confocal microcope for use in the CAT-3 laboratory.

Unity is extremely easy to use with minimal interaction and it's construction allows for the use of typical decontamination procedures.



Big up your image

with Unity's 2x(4MPix) scientific CMOS camera

At the heart of Unity is a custom designed large format and high performance sCMOS digital detector. Developed in collaboration with Ximea, the camera has been designed specifically for use in Unity and for confocal imaging experiments.

Unity's camera has a novel design, consisting of two 2k x 2k scientific grade CMOS chips mounted side by side with shared electronics such that the two chips are pixel to pixel registered allowing Aurox's patented approach to laser-free confocal imaging.

Unity uses the camera to record both confocal and widefield images in both the low magnification sample overview mode (large field of view of 4mm x 4mm) and also in the high magnification 4-100x mode for the imaging of high resolution Z-stacks.




Plug and Play

with Unity

Designed for the laboratory bench-top, Unity is extremely compact and self-contained, weighing less than 25 Kg. Gone are the tangle of cables found on other confocal systems. Unity requires a single power cable and has rear ports for the connection of a CO2 supply. Unity can be networked wirelessly, but it also has a wired network connection and multiple USB-3 / USB-c ports if required.


Live long and prosper

with Unity's Incubator and CO2

Unity’s red cased incubator sample stage provides heating and CO2 gas connections for sample environment control, allowing your live-cell samples to be maintained at 35-37 degrees Celsius and under CO2 for the duration of your longer term imaging experiments.




13 hour live-cell imaging experiment timelapse video of HEK293 cells.


13 hour timelapse of HEK293 cells collected with Unity Life bench top confocal fitted with 60x 1.4 NA Oil immersion objective. Transient transfection with Lifeact GFP plasmid for polymerising actin. 20 micron thick Z stack images taken every 30 minutes as part of a multi-position data acquisition in an 8 well plate.

Sample courtesy of Edwin ???, Imperial College London

Collect and serve

with Unity's CPU and image server

Unity does more than just collect high quality confocal imaging data. Unity also stores your data on 2x 2Tb SSD integrated servers and makes your data accessible to you, wherever you are over a secure network.




Play all the angles

with Unity's patented optical path

The patented optical path is central to the design of Unity and its enabling technology. It allows sample imaging from both above and below the sample, providing confocal and widefield imaging whilst maintaining an extremely compact size.


See the big picture..

with Unity's 3x sample overview

Unity sees things differently, using a built in 3.25x magnification opto-electronic lens positioned above the sample position.

This low magnification lens provides a 4mm field of view, multi-channel, overview image of the sample from above the multi-well plate, petri-dish or slide.

Switching between overview (low) magnification and high magnification is virtually instantaneous and the decoupling of the respective lenses allows you to switch back and forth at anytime without the need to adjust the focus.





..and see the fine detail

with Unity's high magnification objective

Unity comes with both a low magnification (3.25x) overview; used for bulk sample imaging and an integrated high magnification objective lens for detailed study. The high magnification objective is customisable at point of order and can be selected from 20-60x magnification Nikon oil, water or dry lenses.




Glide through life

with Unity's re-invented motorised XY stage

Carrying is hardwork. Other microscope stages carry the sample, sample mount, incubator and most of all the heavy microscope stage itself. These all ride around supported and driven by necessarily large heavy duty motor assemblies.

Unity is different. We only move the sample and sample mount in our holder and we glide. Part of this is because we don't need to move the stage in Z. The rest is because the sample holder sits on a low friction glass plate over which the sample glides like a hockey puck as we push it around X and Y. Pushing is done by two ultra compact precision magnetic motors moving along magnetised guide poles.








Be the king of Spin

with Unity's spinning disk

Designed around Aurox’s laser-free confocal technology, Unity combines Aurox’s patented structured illumination spinning disk with state-of-the-art technology and a unique, novel optical arrangement. The results are high quality confocal images recorded quickly and easily in your laboratory.




Take it eaZZZZy

with Unity's Objective Z-drive

Instead of moving the sample stage up and down Unity moves the objective lens.

The high magnification objective is mounted on a piezo motor Z-drive and focusing is achieved by moving the objective closer or farther away from the sample.

When collecting a Z-stack, the objective Z position is driven in one smooth continuous motion as the individual image slices in Z are recorded.



Embrace the process

with Third Party Processing Software

For a closer look and post processing, you can simply read Unity OMETIFF image data directly into a wide range of third party image processing software, including:

  • DRVision Aivia
  • Image-J/Fiji
  • Image Pro Premier
  • Andor Imaris

Unity data is fully compatible with post processing algorithms such as 3D SRRF, SOFI, Huygens and on the fly deconvolution with Microvolution



Technical specifications


Key specifications
Confocality0.6 μm (FWHM) with 1.4 N.A oil objective
Disk1 sector structured illumination disk.
Minimum exposure20 ms
Maximum frame rateUp to 40 fps (1 colour)
Up to 13 fps (3-colours)
Imaging channels3 integrated filter channels, DAPI, FITC, TRITC.
Channel switchingInstantaneous.
DetectorIntegrated sCMOS 2x (2048 x 2048), 6.5 µm pixels.
Excitation range370 - 700 nm
Emission range410 - 750 nm


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