The Leica VT1000 S is a vibrating blade microtome, designed specifically to meet the highly sophisticated sectioning requirements in the fields of neurophysiology, neuropathology and experimental (brain) research – such as patch-clamping technique – and some industrial applications related to structural analysis of foam and other very soft materials.

The Leica VT1000 S can easily be adapted, depending on the application by altering the frequency between 0 and100 Hz and by selecting the appropriate amplitude (0.2 to 1 mm in 5 steps). The instrument features a very fine adjustable knife advance speed between 0,025 to 2.5 mm/s and programmable sectioning window and specimen retraction.

The Leica VT1000 S is designed to consistently produce thin sections of both fresh and lightly fixed tissues. Fresh nervous tissues, brain, spinal cord etc., are soft, fragile and extremely susceptible to mechanical damage. Primary importance in the design of the VT1000 S was placed on accurate control of the knife or blade. To achieve this, a single edge razor blade or a sapphire knife is clamped into a holder that has an adjustable clearance angle of 5° - 15°. Accurate linear control of both advance speed and sectioning frequency is emphasized. Knife advance is now fully adjustable from 0.05 - 5.0 mm/s. Sectioning frequency has a range of 0 - 100 Hz, with an amplitude range of 0.2 - 1.0 mm.

Tissues are mounted directly onto a specimen plate, using cyanoacrylate adhesive, and mounted into a double walled buffer tray which is filled with physiological buffer. The buffer serves two purposes: it maintains the tissue in a living state and also provides a flotation medium for the sections. Both the knife holder and buffer tray are easily removed to ensure that there is no risk of reagent carryover or contamination when sectioning fresh or fixed tissues.

A programmable cutting window combined with accelerated return knife speed ensures rapid sectioning of even the smallest specimens.The superior sections produced with the VT1000 S contain a significant number of viable cells and are invaluable for electrophysiological studies on the living cell.