High-resolution reflective microscope

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The goal of this SBIR project is to develop and commercialize a fundamentally new type of all-reflective microscope (ARM) without any obscuration for full spectrum applications from ultraviolet (UV) to infrared (IR). In Phase I stage, Light Research Inc (LRI) will demonstrate ARM by designing, prototyping, and characterizing a high numerical aperture (NA) reflective objective and tubing lens. Current refractive microscope has a number of limitations due to the material dispersion and absorption: chromatic aberrations, throughput, group delay dispersion (GDD), and narrow working spectral range. While successfully addressing the limitations on chromatic aberration and group delay dispersion, the traditional solution - on-axis reflective objective - still has some other major issues due to the central obscuration, preventing it from being widely adopted in biological research: low throughput, low contrast, and low image quality. To address all limitations in the current state-of-the-art refractive and reflective microscope, a fundamentally new and true ARM without obscuration will be developed. The key innovation of this ARM is the off-axis configuration with freeform surfaces. Off-axis, non-obscuration objective with freeform surfaces will address all issues related to traditional reflective objective, and has the following unique key properties: high image contrast, high image quality, high light efficiency, high throughput, zero chromatic aberration, and low GDD. LRI will license the snap- on assembling technology from University of Arizona (UA) to develop and commercialize the alignment-free off- axis, non-obscuration reflective objective. The goal of the Phase I project will be achieved through two aims: (1) design ARM, and (2) prototype and characterize ARM. With the gained knowledge and successful demonstration of ARM in Phase I project, in Phase II LRI will develop and commercialize a series of reflective objectives with different NAs and tube lenses with different focal lengths. With the unique capability of high-performance imaging from UV to IR without any obscuration, the true ARM will not only simplify the configurations of the current multimodal and broadband imaging systems, but also enable investigators to advance the biological and biomedical research through acquiring new multimodal and broadband data with higher throughput and speed in full spectrum, and developing new imaging techniques not possible with current microscope platform.