Microscope with extension of the depth of field by employing a cubic phase plate on the surface of lens

Abstract

An incoherent optical system with wavefront coding extends the depth of field (DOF) by employing a cubic phase plate (CPP). We designed a digital microscope with a CPP in the aperture stop and on the surface of the lens, which extended the DOF. In addition, we proposed a method in which the CPP can be shifted and assigned to the surface of the lens by adjusting the third-order coefficient of the xy polynomial surface, so that the CPP on the surface of the lens can replace a single CPP in the aperture stop, which collided with the optical elements and mechanism in some cases, to reduce the difficulty in assembling. The microscope with flexibility and without loss of the illumination level can considerably improve the efficiency of microscopic applications.