A portable high-resolution microscope based on combination of fiber-optic array and pre-amplification lens

Abstract

A portable high-resolution microscope based on combination of fiber-optic array (FOA) and pre-amplification lens, which can overcome the magnification limit of FOA, was developed. By employing the amplification lens at the small-end of the FOA, the resolution was improved from 4.4 μm to 1.0 μm over a field of view (FOV) of 140 μm × 100 μm without using any algorithm processing, and the distortion only slightly increases from 0.13% to 0.19%. The distortion is still lower than that of normal lens-based microscopy. Moreover, the combination methods of the amplification lens and FOA were investigated, which including only FOA, the pre-amplification lens at the small-end of the FOA (termed preAL-FOA) and the post-amplification lens at the big-end of FOA (termed postAL-FOA). The result proved the best resolution was achieved by using the preAL-FOA This microscopy is suitable for real-time monitoring of cells in microfluidic systems.