In conventional fluorescence scanning, the LED is on continuously while the stage moves and the camera captures tiles sequentially. This causes photobleaching between exposures and requires the stage to stop at each tile position.
Strobe illumination fires the LED only during the camera's active exposure window. The pulses last microseconds, so they freeze motion even while the stage moves continuously. The benefits:
- Reduced photobleaching: the tissue receives light only during image capture
- Faster scanning: no stop-and-go stage motion required
- Preserved signal: samples can be re-imaged or used for subsequent confocal imaging