Super-resolution lens-free microscopy
AssigneeArizona Board of Regents on Behalf of the University of Arizona
InventorsEuan McLeod, Maryam Baker
Life of this patent
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Abstract
To avoid the limitation imposed by the optical diffraction limit when using a conventional lens-free microscopy systems on spatial resolution to approximately one-half the wavelength of used light, a proposed implementation of a lens-less imaging system utilizes a randomly nanostructured mask (preferably with features of substantially equal sizes) positioned within the limits/extent of evanescent near field of the imaged object (and, preferably, at a non-zero separation distance from the object) to encode high spatial resolution information about the object that would normally be lost due to diffraction when a conventional lens-free imaging system is used
Claims25
An optical system configured to form an image of an object in light having a wavelength, the optical system comprising an optical imaging system that includes:
- a mask layer defined by nano-sized randomly distributed elements and, in operation, positioned in an evanescent near field of the object;
- and
- an optical detector, disposed substantially parallel to the mask layer at a distance beyond and/or outside of the evanescent near field of the object, wherein the optical imaging system does not include a lens.
A method comprising:
- intersecting evanescent optical field, emanating from an object irradiated with an incident optical wavefront containing light at an optical wavelength, with an optical imaging system that does not contain a lens element and that includes a mask layer that is defined by nano-sized randomly distributed elements and that is positioned in an evanescent near field of the object;
- receiving, at an optical detector disposed beyond and/or outside the evanescent near field of the object with respect to the mask layer, the light from said incident optical wavefront that has interacted with the object and with the mask layer and that necessarily contains spatial frequencies representing the evanescent optical field, thereby forming an optical data set representing an encoded image of the object;
- with programmable electronic circuitry, transforming the encoded image of the object into a resolved image of the object, wherein a smallest spatially-resolved elements of the resolved image has an extent smaller than five times the optical wavelength.
An article of manufacture comprising an optical substrate having a thickness value smaller than a depth of evanescent optical field produced by an object irradiated with light a predefined wavelength, and
- a mask layer defined by nano-sized elements randomly distributed on a surface of the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.