Lens-free and portable quantitative phase microscope using a dual-pinhole aperture

Abstract

This paper presents a lens-free and portable quantitative phase microscope. This microscope employs a concise off-axis set-up where a dual-pinhole aperture is utilized to generate the reference wave and the object wave. As no lenses or beamsplitters are used in this microscope, the total size of this microscope is only slightly larger than a smart phone, and the cost of this microscope except for the digital camera is about 3000 RMB. Even with such small size and low cost, this microscope possesses a lateral resolution of ∼ 1.7μm and an axial accuracy of tens of nanometers.