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Published August 21, 2014 | Supplemental Material + Published
Journal Article Open

A smartphone-based chip-scale microscope using ambient illumination

Abstract

Portable chip-scale microscopy devices can potentially address various imaging needs in mobile healthcare and environmental monitoring. Here, we demonstrate the adaptation of a smartphone's camera to function as a compact lensless microscope. Unlike other chip-scale microscopy schemes, this method uses ambient illumination as its light source and does not require the incorporation of a dedicated light source. The method is based on the shadow imaging technique where the sample is placed on the surface of the image sensor, which captures direct shadow images under illumination. To improve the image resolution beyond the pixel size, we perform pixel super-resolution reconstruction with multiple images at different angles of illumination, which are captured while the user is manually tilting the device around any ambient light source, such as the sun or a lamp. The lensless imaging scheme allows for sub-micron resolution imaging over an ultra-wide field-of-view (FOV). Image acquisition and reconstruction are performed on the device using a custom-built Android application, constructing a stand-alone imaging device for field applications. We discuss the construction of the device using a commercial smartphone and demonstrate the imaging capabilities of our system.

Additional Information

© 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Received 2nd May 2014, Accepted 27th May 2014, First published online 27 May 2014. The authors thank Dr. Jiangtao Huangfu for his help with the hardware and Mr. Mooseok Jang and Mr. Donghun Ryu for testing of the prototype devices. This work was funded by the NIH grant 1R01AI096226-01 and the Whittier Foundations agency award 9900040.

Attached Files

Published - c4lc00523f.pdf

Supplemental Material - c4lc00523f1.mp4

Supplemental Material - c4lc00523f2.mp4

Supplemental Material - c4lc00523f3.pdf

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