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Agilent Technologies' next generation Agilent 7100 Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) system, provides at least 10 times more sensitivity than any other commercial CE instrument.
"We consider electrophoresis to be one of our core technologies and are seeing strong interest in CE in a number of areas, such as new biological drug QA/QC, environmental analysis, food safety and life sciences," said Nitin Sood, General Manager of Agilent's Electrophoresis business. "Used in standalone mode, as the separations component of a CE/MS or as a complementary, orthogonal technology to LC, Agilent's new 7100 CE system brings unprecedented HPLC-like sensitivity to a wide range of analytical challenges."
CE is also attracting attention because the technique uses very small amounts of solvent. The new 7100 system also requires 25 percent less bench space, weighs 30 percent less than its predecessor and uses less power.
The superior sensitivity is a result of a new detector used in combination with proprietary extended light path capillaries or a high-sensitivity cell. The Agilent 7100 is 10-20 times more sensitive than other CE instruments.
The Agilent 7100 offers the industry's widest selection of detectors for flexibility and sensitivity, and the new instrument is reverse-compatible to the previous Agilent CE platform, so existing methods can continue to be used. The instrument performs the full range of CE separation techniques, including capillary electrochromatography for fast separation of closely related compounds. Its standard replenishment system provides high-throughput for unattended operation, and has been improved to use less buffer for the replenishment function.
The Agilent 7100 CE system was designed to enhance productivity, reliability and ease of use. The new, rugged internal pressure system and improved capillary cooler supports higher currents and/or larger capillary diameters to increase throughput and also to enable a wider range of applications. In addition, the system comes with a new Chemstation software with an easy-to-use graphical user interface and an improved method setup that minimizes start-up and training time.
The system's modular architecture allows fast, easy access to electrodes, prepunchers, electronics and tubing to facilitate routine maintenance and servicing. The quick-change, self-aligning capillary cartridge can be changed out in seconds. It is compatible with all commercially available capillaries.
Plug-and-Play CE/MS
The Agilent 7100 CE provides plug-and-play connectivity to Agilent mass spectrometers (MS), combining the short analysis time and high separation efficiency of CE with the molecular weight and structural information of MS. These include the single quadrupole, time-of-flight, ion trap, triple quadrupole, ICP and quadrupole time-of-flight MS systems. Agilent is the only company to offer a fully integrated CE/MS solution, with all system components coming from a single vendor.
"While adding best-in-class performance, we were careful to preserve the reliability that Agilent CE systems have become known for over the last 16 years," said Tobias Preckel, Agilent product manager, Capillary Electrophoresis. For further information, view website: www.agilent.com/chem/ce Refer to page 286
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Agilent Technologies' High Sensitivity DNA Kit for quality control, sizing and quantification of fragmented DNA and DNA libraries in the Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) workflow. The kit is used with the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, the most successful microfluidics-based platform available commercially, offering solutions for the analysis of DNA, RNA, proteins and cells.
With its high sensitivity the kit will help NGS users working with double-stranded DNA to increase the fidelity of their sequencing data. It enables users to quantify DNA fragments in the lower single-digit pg/µl concentration range. Many NGS sample-preparation protocols require DNA library amplification by PCR, which can often introduce amplification bias. The high sensitivity significantly lowers the number of required PCR cycles, reducing amplification artefacts and improving the quality of sequencing data.
"This is the most sensitive DNA detection method of all gel- and microfluidics-based systems currently on the market," said Knut Wintergerst, electrophoresis marketing and support manager at Agilent. "The advent of NGS has dramatically changed the genetic landscape by significantly decreasing costs of a whole genome sequencing project while increasing experimental speed. Researchers need high quality DNA data quickly and Agilent has created a kit that provides just that."
As the popularity of NGS platforms continues to rise and the premise of Pharmacogenomics continues to evolve, increasing the fidelity of NGS data is a crucial aspect of the workflow for researchers. With its ease of use, reliability, versatility - single stranded DNA QC and RNA QC in NGS workflows - and throughput of 12 samples in 30 minutes, the Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer is an ideal QC tool for NGS platforms.
Launched in 1999, the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer was the first commercially available instrument to use microfluidics technology for the analysis of biological samples. The 2100 Bioanalyzer can be used for electrophoresis and flow cytometry applications.
For further information, view website: www.agilent.com/chem/2100-DNA-hs Refer to page 286
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With demand for photovoltaic panels more than doubling year on year, manufacturers are under pressure to increase solar cell efficiency, improve production yields, and build capacity. Now, a joint team from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore has demonstrated a novel technique to non-destructively test silicon wafer solar cells.
In their research, PhD student Matthew Peloso and his colleagues are developing methods of characterizing solar cells based on luminescence detection and relating this to the electrical properties of the devices. They use an Andor Luca-R Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera to image the solar cells and believe the process may be integrated into the production process, helping manufacturers to improve yields and ramp up volume.
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The image is an entire solar module (1000 x 450 mm) imaged with the Andor Luca-R Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera.
"We have shown that by controlling the applied voltage inducing electroluminescence in solar cells, the observed spectrum of emitted radiation may be used to identify particular performance-reducing defects", says Peloso. "Detection of these changes can be used to understand the electrical properties of defects in the wafers and, potentially, to study their origin, which may lead to lower-cost, higher-quality materials for production. Moreover, the method has proven useful at the module as well as the cell level. We demonstrated that breakdown luminescence - which we believe is associated with metallic impurities - does not show a one-to-one relationship with other defect related luminescence signals detected at energies below the silicon bandgap. Interestingly, certain defects did not lead to electrical shunts, which may cause irreversible destruction of PV modules and cells.
"We chose the Andor Luca-R EMCCD camera because of its high red to NIR sensitivity and linear response to intensities, which allows more quantitative data acquisition. The electron multiplying (EM) gain control allowed us to enhance signal to noise when necessary, although we operated much of the time in non-EM gain mode. The Luca-R also provides a good balance of attractive features, including the ability to achieve high integration times and binning, at a lower price compared to other available scientific cameras, such as deep depletion CCD cameras", he adds.
Dr Colin Coates, Imaging Product Manager at Andor, comments that "Andor's Luca R makes ultrasensitive EMCCD technology available to this price sensitive application. The megapixel format, enhanced red sensitivity and ability to apply EM gain as required renders Luca R an extremely attractive and versatile camera for characterisation and in-line testing of photovoltaics by electro and photoluminescence."
Andor's scientific cameras encompass a wide range of high performance CMOS, CCD, ICCD and EMCCD detectors. To learn more about the Luca camera series and their use in microscopy, view website: http://www.andor.com
Reference
Peloso, M. P., Chaturvedi, P., Wurfel, P., Hoex, B. and Aberle, A. G. "Observations on the Spectral Characteristics of Defect Luminescence of Silicon Wafer Solar Cells," Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2714-2717 (2010) 35th IEEE
Andor Technology in profile
Andor is a world leader in Scientific Imaging, Spectroscopy Solutions and Microscopy Systems. Established in 1989 from Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Andor Technology now employs over 300 people in 16 offices worldwide, distributing its portfolio of over 80 products to 10,000 customers in 55 countries.
Using the latest cutting edge technologies, Andor designs and manufactures robust, high performance instruments allowing scientists around the world to measure light down to a single photon and capture events occurring within 1 billionth of a second. This unique capability is helping them push back the boundaries of knowledge from nano-scale to universe-scale level in fields as diverse as drug discovery, new material development and analysis, medical diagnosis, food quality control, art restoration, astronomy and solar energy research.
For further information about Andor Technology PLC (LSE: AND), view website: http://www.andor.com Refer to page 270
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