SARFUS 3D-IMM: NEW EQUIPMENT FOR NANOMETRIC SAMPLE CHARACTERIZATION IN WATER

Equipments for characterization in water are still rare, relatively complex to operate and do not offer real-time images of samples. SARFUS 3D-IMM is designed to match the needs of the engineering and research community, especially in the Life Science but also in Thin Film and Surface Treatment areas. Indeed, SARFUS 3D-IMM is dedicated to the observation of nano-objects in real-time and to the thickness measurements of ultra-thin films in water.

Like the other SARFUS products, SARFUS 3D-IMM is based on SEEC optical technique that uses specific nonreflecting surfaces for cross-polarized reflected light microscopy. These surfaces -the Surfs- are used instead of standard microscope slides and generate a contrast enhancement of about 2 orders of magnitude, extending the application fields of optical microscopy toward the nanoworld.

Thanks to the absence of scanning and its easiness of use, SARFUS 3D-IMM equipment opens new perspectives for the nano-characterization in aqueous media by allowing dynamic studies of nanometric structures and rapid quality control of samples. In addition, the equipment is proposed with a powerful 3D topographic software for complete characterization (layer thicknesses, section profiles, roughnesses...) of nanometric samples.

The main applications concerned by this innovation are:

Biological objets

- Vesicles
- Lipid bilayers
- Biochips
- Cell adhesion
- ...

Thin films & Surface Treatment

- Polyelectrolytes
- Sensitive films (LCST)
- Nano-films
- Polymer patterns
- ...

The main features of SARFUS 3D-IMM equipment are:

- User friendly & Fast processing
- Repeatability : 0.1nm (according to ISO standard 17025)
- Z-sensibility limit: 0.2nm
- Range of measurement: 1 to 60nm
- Lateral resolution : 330nm
- Live video acquisition
- Time lapse (up to 15 image per second)
- Non destructive, no labelling
- Compatibility with fluorescence