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. 2021 Jul 26;12(8):5261-5271.
doi: 10.1364/BOE.430115. eCollection 2021 Aug 1.

PhaseRMiC: phase real-time microscope camera for live cell imaging

Chao Chen  1 , Yu-Nan Lu  2 , Huachuan Huang  3 , Keding Yan  4 , Zhilong Jiang  1 , Xiaoliang He  1 , Yan Kong  1 , Cheng Liu  1   5 , Fei Liu  2 , Liang Xue  6   7 , Shouyu Wang  1   2   8
Affiliations

PhaseRMiC: phase real-time microscope camera for live cell imaging

Chao Chen et al. Biomed Opt Express. .

Abstract

We design a novel phase real-time microscope camera (PhaseRMiC) for live cell phase imaging. PhaseRMiC has a simple and cost-effective configuration only consisting of a beam splitter and a board-level camera with two CMOS imaging chips. Moreover, integrated with 3-D printed structures, PhaseRMiC has a compact size of 136×91×60 mm3, comparable to many commercial microscope cameras, and can be directly connected to the microscope side port. Additionally, PhaseRMiC can be well adopted in real-time phase imaging proved with satisfied accuracy, good stability and large field of view. Considering its compact and cost-effective device design as well as real-time phase imaging capability, PhaseRMiC is a preferred solution for live cell imaging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
PhaseRMiC. (A) PhaseRMiC prototype; (B) PhaseRMiC optical and mechanical configurations; (C) PhaseRMiC scheme; (D) PhaseRMiC in applications.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Phase imaging testing on PhaseRMiC using a standard random phase mask. (A) under- and (B) over-focus images after FoV correction; (C) computed in-focus image; (D) reconstructed phase in the FoV; (E) zoomed-in phase distributions in different RoIs; (F) cross sectional phase distributions; (G) phase fluctuations, average and standard deviation of purple curve: 3.58 rad and 0.025 rad; average and standard deviation of orange curve: 0.17 rad and 0.022 rad. The white bars in (A) and (D) indicates 100 µm.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Phase imaging on fixed biological specimens as (A)-(E) human red blood cells and (F)-(J) Vero cells using PhaseRMiC. (A)/(F) under- and (B)/(G) over-focus images after FoV correction; (C)/(H) computed in-focus image; (D)/(I) reconstructed phase; (E)/(J) Zoomed-in phase distributions in different RoIs. The white bars in (A), (D), (E), (F), (I) and (J) indicate 100 µm, 100 µm, 5 µm, 100 µm, 100 µm and 20 µm, respectively.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Phase imaging on live Vero cells using PhaseRMiC. (A) simultaneously captured under- and over-focus images; (B) reconstructed real-time phase distributions (see Visualization 1); (C) phase distributions in the RoI at different time. The white bar in (C) indicates 100 µm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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