Active drift stabilization in three dimensions via image cross-correlation Available to Purchase

By monitoring stage drift via the normalized cross-correlation of an image of a stuck bead, obtained in real-time, with an out-of-focus “template” image of a similar immobile bead, stored in memory, we implement a simple approach to actively stabilize drift in all three dimensions for existing video microscopy setups. We demonstrate stability to 0.0062 nm along the Z-axis and 0.0031 nm along the X- and Y-axes for long (100 s) timescales.