I heard that the lasers in these scanners are very powerful. Is photobleaching a concern?
Powerful lasers do not necessarily cause photobleaching. Photobleaching depends on the photostability of the fluorochromes, which is affected by many environmental and experimental factors, such as solvent types, pH, temperature, etc. The amount of photobleaching is affected by the excitation intensity, efficiency, and dwell time at the sample during a scan. Short illumination dwell time helps to reduce the amount of photobleaching. Typhoon, Storm, and FluorImager all give ultra-short dwell times at the sample during the scan. With most commonly used fluorochromes, minimal to no photobleaching is observed even after multiple scans. CCD camera systems can cause significant photobleaching after only one scan.
