Solid-state technologies like LED illumination have the potential to solve all the concerns associated with the use of mercury, but LEDs alone have yet to achieve the brightness needed for microscopy. The mercury arc lamp has long been used as a fluorescent microscope light source because of the bright spectral bands available within the visible wavelengths. Almost every new research or clinical grade fluorescent microscope is equipped with a mercury arc lamp. Metal halide doped mercury arc lamps have become widely employed because they address the reliability concerns around traditional mercury bulbs, increasing bulb longevity ten times. Unfortunately, metal halides contain about three times higher mercury concentration than do traditional mercury bulbs.

The SOLA II Series Light Engines exceed lamp performance in the form of powerful, cool, stable, robust, UV-and IR-free light production and allows the user simple integration with existing filter cubes and hardware configurations. This additional flexibility provides individual users, core facilities and OEMs a superior excitation subsystem. Lifetime is greater than 20,000 hours.

Lumencor has overcome the frustration associated with this dependence on mercury and has revolutionized the solid-state technology world by manufacturing Light Engines capable of replicating and exceeding the spectral properties of the mercury arc lamp. In so doing, Lumencor has obviated the toxic disadvantages previously associated with microscopy. Light Engines allow scientists to utilize high-performance, solid-state, sustainable lighting solutions in clean, safe laboratories using mercury free microscopes.