Can light microscopes really be chip-sized?

Abstract

Light microscopy has changed considerably over the last century. Nevertheless, it still suffers the limitation of being performed in laboratories, what causes delays to results, partial sampling and non-continuous measurements. Here we will demonstrate chip-sized microscopes produced only with microelectronic technologies. With a LED micro-display as a main component and a photodetector, both raster and multi-holographic lensless microscopes were demonstrated. The field of view of the microscopes is given by the micro-display area while LED size limits the resolution. Their low cost in volume manufacturing and chip-sized compactness will allow ubiquitous microscopy soon.