Utilizing Adaptive Optics to build an Inverted Lattice Lightsheet Microscope

Lightsheet microscopy has become an inevitable tool for low photodamage imaging in developmental biology. Dedicated beamshapes (lattice lightsheets) have extended this unrivalled sample preservation to live cell imaging with high spatio-temporal resolution. With the Lattice Lightsheet 7 Zeiss has made this method widely available and we want to show, that the optical configuration of this microscope is defined by only three key requirements: 1. High SNR at low photodamage, 2. Diffraction limited resolution and sectioning, 3. Consumable type sample carrier. Especially, one can conclude from these demands that an adaptive optical element is essential for the imaging path to achieve high-end performance. In order to account for tolerances of the cover glass we developed a generalised Alvarez lens which fully compensates for associated wavefront errors and thereby ensures highest imaging quality.