Microscope such as fluorescence microscope, confocal microscope and two-photon microscope plays an important role in life science, laser processing and other fields. However, most of the microscope only has discrete zoom rates. In this work, a continuous optical zoom microscope with extended depth of field and 3D reconstruction is demonstrated for the first time. It consists of a zoom objective lens, a microscope holder, an adjustable three-dimensional object stage, an Abbe condenser and an LED light source. The zoom objective lens is composed with several liquid lenses and solid lenses. By adjusting the applied voltage to the liquid lens, the proposed microscope can achieve a large continuous magnification from 10× to 60×. Moreover, an improved shape from focus (SFF) algorithm and image fusion algorithm are designed for 3D reproduction. Based on the liquid lens, the axial focusing position can be adjusted to obtain images with different depths, and then the extended depth of field and 3D reconstruction can be realized, as shown in Fig.1. Our experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed microscope. The proposed microscope is expected to be applied in the fields of pathological diagnosis, biological detection, etc.

Fig.1 Prototype of the proposed microscope and the experimental results. (a) 10×-60× continuous optical zoom microscope; (b) Experimental results of depth of field expansion and 3D reconstruction of “spirogyra communis” samples with different depths at the magnification of 10×; (c) Experimental results of depth of field expansion and 3D reconstruction of “spirogyra communis” samples with different depths at the magnification of 60×.

 

Article information

Chao Liu, Zhao Jiang, Xin Wang, Yi Zheng, Yi-Wei Zheng, and Qiong-Hua Wang. Continuous optical zoom microscope with extended depth of field and 3D reconstruction. PhotoniX, 3:20 (2022).

Associate Professor Chao Liu and Dr. Zhao Jiang of Behang University are the first co-authors. Professor Qiong-Hua Wang is the corresponding author.

 

Article link

https://photonix.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43074-022-00066-0