Heating Stages & Incubation Units

Heating stages for live cell imaging

•  Universal heating system for all microscope platforms
•  Micro environment via heated plate and heated transparent top container
•  Heated transparent box prevents condensation on µ-Slide lids
•  With inserts for µ-Slides, regular Slides, or 35mm dishes
•  Controller for two independent heating systems
•  Optional with gas incubation unit

Imaging cells under natural conditions is one of the challenges in today’s microscopy. The two critical parameters that need to be monitored closely are pH and temperature. ibidi µ-Slides help to reduce the loss of CO2 during imaging as the lids are closed tightly.

To monitor and regulate changes in temperature, we developed a heating system that allows an easy temperature control in a very cost effective manner. The heating device can be used with any microscopy chamber or slide and can be adapted to any inverted microscopy system.

In fact ibidi offers two different lines of heating devices. One system contains a heating plate only. These heating plates fit into regular inverted microscope stages (Ø 108mm Nikon; Ø 110mm Olympus). The setups come with a controller that hosts the temperature unit.

In contrast to these regular heating devices a second line of heating stages is produced. This heating stage is a two component system that consists of a heating plate and a heated transparent box. The base for the heating plate is a 96 well plate frame. Such a system can be placed into any regular 96 well frame, delivered with your microscope. The 96 well frame itself can be delivered with inserts for all types of microscopy chambers, µ-Slides, µ-Dishes but also non ibidi formats. In this way, we generated a heating device that can be used on microscopes from different producers, which fits both into manual and automated stages.

Besides the heated 96 well frame, the system comes with a heated transparent box, and a unit that hosts two independent temperature controllers. The box creates a heated environment around the specimen. The heating elements are ordered in such a way that a defined temperature gradient in vertical direction arises. Heating the upper box to around 40°C and the lower heating plate to around 37°C only prevents the formation of condensed water at the lid of your microscopy chamber. However, it prevents scattering of light or shadow formation and provides a better illumination of the specimen, as indicated in the graph.

Furthermore the top container can be modified with a gas inlet. An active CO2 and O2 gas mixer makes the system a fully compatible stage top incubator.

System Overview 96 Well Format Heating System