Expanding the field of view in optical microscopy: A multidisciplinary approach.

摘要

The optical microscope is playing an ever increasingly important role in the recent emergence and rapid growth of automated medical diagnostics, biotechnology, and microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, in its common form, the optical microscope suffers from a well known inherent tradeoff between the resolution and the field-of-view. This thesis demonstrates that by taking a multidisciplinary approach to the imaging problem, the field of view can be effectively expanded while maintaining high resolution. This capability offers the potential for increased imaging throughput and the observation of challenging spatial-temporal events when compared to existing technologies.; To demonstrate the advantages of a combined dynamic, optical, mechanical, and algorithmic approach, this thesis presents a novel microscope design, called the Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM). The ASOM design includes a high speed scanning mirror and custom designed scanning lens assembly operating in coordination with a microelectro-mechanical-system (MEMS) deformable mirror and image processing to manage the off-axis aberrations that normally limit the size of the field-of-view. High fidelity simulations of an example ASOM design demonstrate the efficacy of the approach and a comparison of the performance specifications is made to existing technologies. While the multidisciplinary nature of the ASOM offers certain advantages when compared to the existing technologies, it significantly complicates the design process. To manage the size of the design problem and to coordinate the different simulation tools that are required to design the ASOM, this thesis contributes a design methodology that draws heavily from the field of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO). Lastly, to validate the simulated results and to further demonstrate the ASOM concept, two experimental setups are presented. The first experimental setup is used to demonstrate high speed scanning in both a micro-assembly task and a biological observation of a large population of living cells. The second experimental setup demonstrates all optical aspects of the ASOM concept, including in-situ shape optimization of the deformable mirror for improved image quality, but is limited by a manually adjusted steering mirror.