SENSOCELL Optical Tweezers
With its innovative optical manipulation module and unique force spectroscopy technology, the SENSOCELL optical trapping platform is the perfect tool for researchers pushing the limits of science in the fields of Cell Mechanobiology, Molecular Biophysics and Soft Matter Physics.
The only optical tweezers including calibration-free force measurements
SENSOCELL is the only optical trapping platform in the market that allows measuring forces without needing any prior calibration of the trap stiffness enabling even non-expert users to perform direct force measurements and rheology assays in an easy and speedy manner.
Measure inside living cells, tissues and organisms
Our patented and exclusive force spectroscopy technology allows measuring forces in complex media like living cells, tissues or living organisms as well as non biological material such as colloids or liquid crystals.
Active rheology of cellular medium, colloids and protein condensates
Characterize the sitffness, viscosity and elasticity of cells cytoplasm, nucleus, biomolecular condensates and colloids with our automatized TimSom microrheology routine.
Force measurements on bacteria, cells and organelles
Forces can be measured on irregular objects such as cells and bacteria or endogenous trappable cellular structures like lipid vesicles, membranes and nuclei.
Upgrade your SENSOCELL with CONFOCAL and Epi-FL imaging
We offer upgrade options for fluorescence and confocal imaging. Contact us for more information
NEW! Custom incubation chamber
designed by OKOLAB
- Customizable microscope configuration.
- Fluorescence and high speed confocal imaging options.
SENSOCELL Main Features & Applications Slideshow
Applications of the SENSOCELL optical trapping platform
Our optical tweezers instruments have applications in different fields. Chech our Applications page for detailed information.
Cell Mechanobiology
Applications include measuring cell membrane tension, receptor-ligand adhesions, intracellular rheology, cell indentation, nucleus mechanics, cell motion forces and cell-cell interactions.
Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation (LLPS) of biomolecular condensates
Characterize the viscoelasticity of protein droplets by measuring their bulk and interface complex shear modulus.
Molecular Biophysics
Study motor protein activity, the mechanics of cytoskeleton filaments and other single-molecule approaches.
Colloidal and Soft Matter Physics
Measure particle-particle interactions in colloidal systems, gels, or liquid crystals and perform active rheology assays of these materials.
Precise, extensive and flexible optical trapping capabilities
Sensocell users can manually control mutliple optical traps using the “click & drag” mode through the camera interface or apply predefined oscillations, trajectories, pattern sequences, active rheology routines or force clamping in an automatized way.
Generate and control up to 256 optical traps
Thanks to its fast acousto-optic deflection (AOD) technology, our optical trapping module allows generating and manipulating up to 256 simultaneous optical traps.
Microscopy options adapted to your needs: Add-on or Turnkey setup:
The SENSOCELL system is designed as an add-on module to be installed on a preexisting inverted microscope from the NIKON Ti and Ti2 family. The system can also be acquired as a turnkey setup, already assembled on a customizable inverted microscope from the NIKON Ti2 family with the configuration of your choice.
An optical trapping setup with customizable configuration
The SENSOCELL optical tweezers platform includes:
- Our AOD based optical manipulation module
- The direct force spectroscopy module
- An ultra-stable single-frequency laser source (5W, 1064 nm)
- A High NA optical trapping objective
- An imaging camera to be selected among different models (HAMAMATSU ORCA family, Photometrics, Tucsen…)
- Our LightAce control software suite
- A Ti2 microscope station with your preferred configuration for turnkey solutions
Confocal, Epi-Fluorescence and Super-Resolution imaging
SENSOCELL is an add-on instrument for inverted microscopes with customizable configuration. The SENSOCELL optical trapping platform can be upgraded with its integrated High-Speed Confocal or an Epi-Fluorescence module from the Ti2LAPP system.
Alternatively, it can be combined with third party systems including Spinning Disk Confocal, SIM or TIRF units.
Video of a sequence of multiple trap patterns applied on 16 microspheres
Different optical manipulation modes used on beads and cells
Discover LightAce, our control software suite for SENSOCELL optical trapping platform.
LightAce is a powerful, flexible and user-friendly control software suite for the SENSOCELL optical tweezers. Easy and intuitive to work with, LightAce will allow you to:
Program advanced optical trapping experiments with our built-in routines
Navigating through the different options on the interface menu, LightAce offers you an incredible set of optical trapping, manipulation & measurement features. Use our LightAce integrated routines and customize them for your specific experiments by simply setting the desired parameter values.
Record videos synchronized with force and position data
Synchronized with the optical trapping platform camera, LightAce allows recording videos of your experiments synchronized in time with mutliple traps force and position data.
Create your own routines using our LightAce SDK.
Use the LightAce Software Development Kit (SDK) to create your own routines without coding in a simple, flexible and visual interface.
1. Choose among the manipulation & measurements functions included in the LightAce SDK library:
2. Customize your selected functions by setting their input parameters values following our detailed SDK manual instructions:
3. Combine them to create your routines and control all optical trapping capabilities and features of SENSOCELL. Here is an example of a 1-click routine that applies a predefined trajectory simultaneously to multiple traps:
Would you like a DEMO?
Download SENSOCELL brochure