The Linkam BCS196 microscope cooling stage has been at the forefront of cryobiology for over 15 years.

Liquid nitrogen is injected directly into the block by the LNP94/2 cooling pump automatically controlled by the temperature programmer. Temperature feedback is provided by a pt100 platinum resistor to give <0.01s response time.

By precisely controlling the rates of cooling and heating of the microscope stage, ice crystal morphology can be intimately controlled and investigated.

Recycled nitrogen gas is used to purge the microscope stage of moisture and prevent condensation hence enable the capture of clear highly resolved images.

For ice crystal seeding, a cold spot has been provided on one of the cooling pipes allowing nucleated freezing to be initiated.

For high ultra high speed cooling, the microscope stage can be modified so that the sample can be transferred from a copper post onto the pre-cooled silver block. The resulting cooling rate is approximately 5000_C/min.