Muscope: a miniature on-chip lensless microscope

Abstract

We report the Muscope, a miniature lensless holographic microscope suitable for on-chip integration. The prototype of the Muscope measured approximately only 7 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm, and was capable of offering a sub-micron half-pitch resolution. We have used, for the first time, a microLED display as the light source in a microscope. The individual pixels of a microLED display chip are used as programmable, microscopic and intense LEDs which can be spatially moved in a two-dimensional plane with a 5 μm pitch. This unique feature set of the display was used to implement computational super-resolution and wide-field imaging without any extra hardware, unlike many other lensless microscopes. We also report a new method to evaluate the magnification in our setting. The Muscope surpasses the existing lensless microscopes in compactness, scalability for production, automated operation and system integration. It provides exciting opportunities for a new class of devices with in-built optical imaging and monitoring and/or sensing capabilities.