A dual-mode mobile phone microscope using the onboard camera flash (Conference Presentation)

Antony Orth; Emma R. Wilson; Jeremy Thompson; Brant C. Gibson

doi:10.1117/12.2289763

5 April 2018 A dual-mode mobile phone microscope using the onboard camera flash (Conference Presentation)

Antony Orth, Emma R. Wilson, Jeremy Thompson, Brant C. Gibson

Proceedings Volume 10485, Optics and Biophotonics in Low-Resource Settings IV; 1048503 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2289763
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2018, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Mobile phones come equipped with a vast array of actuation and sensing technologies, making them an ideal platform for point-of-care diagnostics and information gathering. Mobile phone microscopes take advantage of the small pixel size on mobile phone camera sensors for micron-scale resolution. Focusing can be achieved with built-in autofocus and image processing can be done on-board, however, the illumination is typically introduced via an external light emitting diode (LED). These external LEDs are typically externally powered, adding bulk and cost to a system that is meant to be as affordable as possible. In this work, we present a mobile phone microscope that uses the phone's integrated flash as an illumination source, eliminating the need to engineer an external illumination into the system. Our design consists of a 3D printed clip-on module containing a lens, which together with the mobile phone camera lens acts as an infinite-conjugate microscope. The clip-on module functions as a basic sample holder, and contains a series of light tunnels that redirect light from the flash through the sample for brightfield illumination. Instead of mirrors and a condenser lens, diffuse reflection from the internal light tunnel of the plastic clip-on module both reflects and scatters light into a range of illumination angles – ideal for brightfield microscopy. For low-contrast samples, darkfield imaging is achieved with ambient lighting via internal reflection within the sample microscope slide. We demonstrate imaging and video microscopy of a range of samples including plants, cell cultures and cattle semen.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Antony Orth, Emma R. Wilson, Jeremy Thompson, and Brant C. Gibson "A dual-mode mobile phone microscope using the onboard camera flash (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10485, Optics and Biophotonics in Low-Resource Settings IV, 1048503 (5 April 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2289763

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KEYWORDS

Cell phones

Microscopes

Microscopy

Illumination engineering

Light emitting diodes

Cameras

Point-of-care devices

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