Live From Photonics West 2012: Lower-Cost Scientific CMOS Camera
Chris Ryan of QImaging talks about their new scientific CMOS camera, the Rolera Bolt, which, according to QImaging, costs less than half that of most scientific CMOS cameras. It features a high-quantum-efficiency 1.3-megapixel sensor (3.63 µm x 3.63 µm pixel size), low read noise (~ 3e-), and high-speed (30 fps full resolution) simultaneous readout.
Video Transcript
Chris Ryan: My name is Chris Ryan. I'm the associate product manager for QImaging. I'm here today to talk about the new scientific CMOS camera, the Rolera Bolt from QImaging. It offers a 1.3 megapixel resolution camera. It runs 30 frames a second with 3 electrons of read noise. It does it all through the convenience of a USB 2.0 interface.
The Rolera Bolt with the speed, resolution and low noise, it's really ideal for motility tracking and different life cell applications that require excellent sensitivity but you really need that video rate performance.
Typically in the past we've used CCDs to image and acquire data and fluorescence for even whole cell and life cell applications, we've always been limited in the tempora resolution. With the Bolt, with that 30 frames per seconds and that really low read noise, you get that sensitivity and you are able to now have the nice temporal resolution which is great for, again, whole organism motility tracking.
The Bolt also features new Pixel-Freeze Technology, which is the most advanced way to handle the buildup of dark current. We effectively measure dark current in a pixel by pixel basis in real time and adjust our reference voltage to account for that. And so the signal that is actually digitized is the signal due to the light hitting the sensor and not due to the buildup of dark current.
So the Rolera Bolt brings the scientific CMOS technology with megapixel resolution, 30 frames a second, 3 electrons of read noise. It brings this high performance at a price nearly one third of the current offerings that are out there. It really is the ideal solution for a lot of life cell fluorescence motility studies.