P-2000 Laser-Based Micropipette Puller

P-2000
Laser-Based Micropipette Puller

• Product Description
• Specifications
• Pricing
• Technical Information

The P-2000 Micropipette Puller represents a significant advancement in the fabrication of micropipettes, fiber optic probes, and nanospray tips. The P-2000 combines a CO₂_laser-based heat source with our extensive experience in the field of traditional pullers. This system boasts capabilities unmatched by other pullers.

While the P-2000 is suitable for most conventional glasses, its primary advantage lies in its ability to work with quartz glass (fused silica). Quartz offers superior material properties for a variety of research applications. Quartz is stronger than other glasses, enabling it to easily penetrate tough tissues that would typically damage traditional pipettes¹. For applications requiring low-noise glass, users will find quartz to be the lowest noise glass available^2,4. Quartz is free from any metals used in conventional glasses³. From an optical perspective, quartz produces almost no fluorescence under light.

The CO2 laser was chosen as the heat source for the P-2000 for several reasons: 1) The laser's nominal emission wavelength is close to the resonant frequency of the SiO2 lattice in glass_{. Therefore, with appropriate laser power applied,} quartz and other conventional glasses can be melted; 2) Laser heating is clean and does not leave metal residues on the pipette like traditional heating filaments; 3) Laser heating can be instantly turned off without any residual filament heat; 4) Users can programmatically control the amount and distribution of heat applied to the glass; 5) The use of a laser heat source means there is no need to burn out or replace filaments.

The P-2000 can store up to 100 independent programs, each containing up to 8 command lines. Programmable parameters include: laser power level, scan width, velocity, delay/laser on time, and hard pull strength.

An important consideration when using the P-2000 is the diameter of the glass used. The P-2000/G is designed to provide uniform heating for glass with an outer diameter of up to 1.2 mm. The P-2000/G can handle larger diameter glass (up to 1.5 mm for quartz and 1.8 mm for conventional glass), but performance is optimal for glass with a diameter of 1.2 mm or smaller. 

The P-2000/F is specifically designed for small-diameter glass (outer diameter ranging from 0.125 mm to 0.6 mm), such as optical fibers and fused silica capillaries commonly used to fabricate nanospray tips. The P-2000/F is equipped with specialized fiber optic puller bars and is optically aligned, making it optimized for small-diameter materials.

Like large-diameter glass, the P-2000/F and small-diameter glass can produce tips of various sizes and taper geometries. We have successfully pulled fiber optic tips ranging from less than 10 nm to greater than 5 µm. For more information, please consult our technical staff.

Common Applications P-2000

P-2000/G
• Patch Clamp – Single Channel
  and Whole-Cell Recording
• Intracellular Recording
• Nanoprobe Research
• Scanning Electron Microscopy

P-2000/F
• Nanospray Mass Spectrometry
• NSOM
• Tapered Optical Fibers

Features
• Capable of pulling quartz, borosilicate, and aluminosilicate glass.
• Fully programmable – including heating filament characteristics.
• Unlike traditional filaments, the laser has no melting point limit; therefore, it will not burn out.
• Pulls electrodes with tip diameters smaller than 0.03µm.
• Optimized velocity sensing circuitry to maximize sensitivity and repeatability.*
• _{Under normal usage, the CO 2} laser is expected to last over a decade, after which it can be refurbished by Sutter Instrument Company for a nominal fee.
• Individual programs can be write-protected to prevent accidental changes.
• Displays total heating time during the pull to improve program development and troubleshooting.
• Displays date and time stamps to indicate when a program was last modified.
• The P-2000/F is ideal for applications such as nanospray and NSOM.
• Pre-programmed intracellular pipette and patch pipette pull programs. The P-2000/F also includes NSOM tip programs.

References
These references describe the Flaming/Brown puller and contain valuable information applicable to the P-2000.

¹Munoz, J.L. and Coles, J.Quartz micropipettes for intracellular voltage microelectrodes and ion-selective microelectrodes. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 22:57-64, 1987.

²Rae, J.L. and Levis, R.A., A method for exceptionally low noise single channel recordings. European Journal of Physiology - Pflügers Archiv: 420:618-620, 1992.

³Zuazaga, C. and Steinacker, A.Patch clamp recording of ion channels: interference effects of patch pipette glass. News in Physiological Sciences 5:155-159, 1990.

⁴Levis, R.A. and Rae, J.L.Low-noise single-channel recording using quartz patch pipettes. Biophysical Journal 65:1666-1677, 1993.