Imaging system, methodology, and applications employing reciprocal space optical design

• US 20050001144A1
• Filed: 05/14/2004
• Published: 01/06/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pixel Matched Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: Angkor Technology, LLP, Daniel B. Bortnick, Gregory Turocy, Himanshu S. Amin, Palantyr Research LLC
• Inventors: Cartlidge, Andrew G., Fein, Howard
• Granted Patent: US 7,288,751 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 250/208.100
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/0008 Microscopes having a simple construction, e.g. portable microscopes
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/02 Objectives
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/088 for both incident illumination and transillumination
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/16 adapted for ultraviolet illumination ; Fluorescence microscopes G02B21/0076 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/24 Base structure
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/365 Control or image processing arrangements for digital or video microscopes G02B21/361, G02B21/362 take precedence

Abstract

An imaging system, methodology, and various applications are provided to facilitate optical imaging performance. The system includes a sensor having one or more receptors and an image transfer medium to scale the sensor and receptors in accordance with resolvable characteristics of the medium. A computer, memory, and/or display associated with the sensor provides storage and/or display of information relating to output from the receptors to produce and/or process an image, wherein a plurality of illumination sources can also be utilized in conjunction with the image transfer medium. The image transfer medium can be configured as a k-space filter that correlates a pitch associated with the receptors to a diffraction-limited spot associated with the image transfer medium, wherein the pitch can be unit-mapped to about the size of the diffraction-limited spot.

Claims

1. A microscopic imaging system, comprising:

a handheld computer for storing an image from an object plane;

a camera associated with the handheld computer to receive the image from the object plane; and

at least one optical component that magnifies data from the object plane in order to generate the image.

2. The system of claim 1, the camera having a sensor comprising one or more pixels, the pixels having a pixel pitch, the pixel pitch having a correlation to the at least one optical component, the correlation provides a range of less than two pixels that are mapped to a diffraction-limited spot to one pixel mapped to less than two diffraction-limited spots.

3. The system of claim 1, the at least one optical component is selected to promote frequencies of interest from microscopic specimens at the camera by forming a band pass filter with the camera.

4. The system of claim 1, the hand held computer includes wired or wireless ports wired ports for transferring electronic images between locations.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more mirrors for directing images to the camera.

6. The system of claim 1, the hand held camera is adapted as a cell phone.

7. The system of claim 1, the at least one optical component includes a matching lens and a resolution lens for mapping pixels associated with the camera.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a stage component for imaging a specimen.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a light source and an illumination lens for the light source to illuminate objects of interest.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a holographic diffuser positioned in front of the light source.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising a power supply to be employed with at least one of the light source and the hand held computer.

12. The system of claim 11, the power supply is a regulated AC supply, a regulated DC supply, or a battery.

13. The system of claim 1, at least one of the hand held computer, the camera, and the at least one optical component are configured circumferentially with respect to one another in order to minimize planar real estate of an overall configuration.

14. The system of claim 1, the at least one optical component maps pixels from the camera to about 1.75 pixels per spot, 1.5 pixels per spot, 1 pixels per spot, 0.9 pixels per spot, and 0.7 pixels per spot.

15. A method for optimising information received by a sensor, comprising:

determining a resolution size parameter of a sensor;

determining a diffraction size parameter for at least one optical component; and

de-magnifying the resolution size parameter of the sensor to form an optimised filter with the diffraction size parameter of the at least one optical component.

16. The method of claim 15, the resolution size parameter is about 2.7 microns.

17. The method of claim 16, the diffraction size parameter is at least one of about 2.5 microns, about 1 microns, about 0.625 microns, about 0.384 microns, and about 0.2 microns.

18. The method of claim 17, the resolution size parameter is de-magnified about 1.1×

when the diffraction size parameter is about 2.5 microns, de-magnified about 2.7×

when the diffraction size parameter is about 1 microns, de-magnified about 4.32×

when the diffraction size parameter is about 0.625 microns, de-magnified about 7.03×

when the diffraction size parameter is about 0.384 microns, and de-magnified about 13.5×

when the diffraction size parameter is about 0.2 microns, wherein x refers to times magnified.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising generating an image at a given resolution with about 10 to about 100 times less magnification than systems optimised for the human eye given a similar resolution.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising manually or automatically adjusting a light source to tune the characteristics of the diffraction size parameter.

21. The method of claim 15, the resolution size parameter is associated with a scanning beam dimension.

22. A system for generating microscopic images, comprising:

means for sensing image components from an object field of view in accordance with a resolution parameter; and

means for mapping the image components to a memory in accordance with a diffraction-limited spot parameter that is tuned to the resolution parameter.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising means for lighting the image components.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising means for diffusing the means for lighting the image components.

25. The system of claim 22, further comprising means for adjusting the diffraction-limited spot parameter.

26. The system of claim 22, the resolution parameter is associated with a pixel pitch or a beam spot dimension.

27. An imaging system, comprising:

a component that receives an image from an object plane; and

a sensor comprising a plurality of pixels, wherein a subset of the pixels are sized so as to be substantially tuned to a diffraction-limited spot size associated with a plurality of lenses of the system that generate the received image.

28. The system of claim 27, the subset of pixels are respectively sized within the range of about 50% to about 150% of the size of the diffraction-limited spot.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein respective pixels of the subset are size matched to the diffraction limited spot so as to facilitate reception of image data within spatial frequencies of interest.

30. The system of claim 27, wherein respective pixels of the subset are size matched to the diffraction limited spot so as to facilitate mitigation of indeterminacy of data collected by adjoining pixels.

31. A wireless telephone comprising the system of claim 27.

32. A portable computing device comprising the system of claim 27.

33. The system of claim 27 further comprising a matching lens and a resolution lens.

34. The system of claim 27, further comprising a holographic diffuser positioned in front of a light source.