Figure 3.

Hardware enabling optical action potential screens. (A) Depicts a 24-well plate allowing an electrical field stimulation of cardiac myocytes under the application of high numerical aperture oil immersion objectives. For a detailed description refer to Muller et al. (2010)). (B) Shows a design of a prototype microscope, which is representative for a new generation of microscopes allowing a precise screen of standard multi-well plates and be able to detect two emission channels simultaneously on array detectors like CCD or CMOS based cameras. (B) Is a courtesy from Prof. Rainer Uhl (TILL I.D. GmbH, Gräfelfing, Germany). (C) Shows the state of the art scientific CMOS sensor (a) and key specifications of that sensor, what are frame rates in the range of 1 kHz (b) and a quantum efficiency of 60% around 550 nm (c). (D) Is modified from Coates et al. (2009).