SCHOTT optical glasses for life-science applications

Optical glasses from SCHOTT fulfilling tight specifications regarding optical position, dispersion and fluorescence are a key factor in the design of lens systems for modern life science applications e.g. fluorescence- and CARS microscopy or DNA sequencing. The special short flint glasses N-KZFS4, N-KZFS5 and N-KZFS8 are among those glasses and offer a unique deviation of the partial dispersion from the normal line. Especially suited for the use in high-end apochromatic lens designs, they have also been developed to highly transmit light in the blue violet range in combination with a low fluorescence at 365 nm excitation wavelength. They are frequently used in combination with low dispersion Fluoro/Phosphate glass types like N-FK51A or N-PK51. It will be shown that SCHOTT has the strong capability to purposeful reduce the fluorescence of selected glass types with modern melting technologies. The fluorescence can be determined for excitation wavelengths between 200 nm and 1500 nm. In this presentation fluorescence spectra at excitation wavelengths between 365 nm and 640 nm of SCHOTT optical glasses, commonly used in microscopy applications, will be shown and discussed.