X. Yang, H. Chen, L. Kreiss, C.B. Cook, G. Kuczewski, M. Harfouche, M.O. Bohlen, R. Horstmeyer, “Curvature-adaptive gigapixel microscopy at submicron resolution and centimeter scale,” Opt. Lett., 50, 5977-5980 (2025).
DOI: 10.1364/OL.572466
New microscope captures large, high-resolution images of curved samples in single snapshot
Innovation promises faster insights for biology, medicine and industrial applications
Researchers have developed a new type of microscope that can acquire extremely large, high-resolution pictures of non-flat objects in a single snapshot. This innovation could speed up research and medical diagnostics or be useful in quality inspection applications.
“Although traditional microscopes assume the sample is perfectly flat, real-life samples such as tissue sections, plant samples or flexible materials may be curved, tilted or uneven,” said research team leader Roarke Horstmeyer from Duke University. “With our approach, it’s possible to adjust the focus across the sample, so that everything remains in focus even if the sample surface isn’t flat, while avoiding slow scanning or expensive special lenses.”
In the Optica Publishing Group journal Optics Letters, the researchers show that the microscope, which they call PANORAMA, can capture submicron details — 1/60 to 1/120 the diameter of a human hair — across an area roughly the size of a U.S. dime without moving the sample. It produces a detailed gigapixel-scale image, which has 10 to 50 times more pixels than the average smartphone camera image.
“This tool can be used wherever large-area, detailed imaging is needed. For instance, in medical pathology, it could scan entire tissue slides, such as those from a biopsy, at cellular resolution almost instantly,” said Haitao Chen, a doctoral student in Horstmeyer’s lab. “In materials science or industrial inspection, it could quickly inspect large surfaces such as a chip wafer at high detail.”
Full article here: https://www.optica.org/about/newsroom/news_releases/2025/new_microscope_captures_large_high-resolution_images_of_curved_samples_in_single_snapshot/
For those that were wondering, as I was:
ReplyDelete"To efficiently capture this high-resolution, wide-area spherical image, we adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy using our MCAM. The MCAM consists of a dense array of 48 micro-cameras, each individually focused onto a local portion of the curved intermediate image plane to relay the optical signal to a flat sensor array [Fig. 2 (c)]. Each unit in the MCAM utilizes a custom-designed lens with a focal length of 14.64 mm, which re-images the intermediate plane onto its respective monochrome CMOS sensor (ONSemi AR1335). The MCAM is configured as a 6
8 array arranged in a regular grid with a center-to-center spacing of 9 mm. At this pitch and optical magnification, the FOVs of adjacent cameras overlap by approximately 10% along the short axis and 30% along the long axis of each sensor, which ensures complete coverage across the array while supporting accurate registration. This per-camera focus adjustment allows the system to conform to field curvature without mechanical scanning or active optical compensation, enabling uniform, in-focus gigapixel imaging over a centimeter-scale FOV."