Fiber optic array as an alternative to the optical lens in microscopy: A proof-of-concept study

Abstract The majority of optical microscopes rely heavily on the lens group because of the low cost and ease of use. However, this type of microscope is limited by the relative long working distance, large chromatic aberration and complex structure. As an alternative to the lens, fiber optic array (FOA) can overcome the above limitations and achieve better results in the same magnification scale. This paper demonstrated that the microscope based on the FOA had a comparable resolution (3μm) with the traditional lens group microscope, while the field-of-view (FOV) of FOA was almost four times larger than the latter. Without any manual focus, the volume and distortion of our FOA microscope were obviously smaller than that of the lens group microscope. To obtain a better microscopy imaging performance based on the FOA, the coupling efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the FOA microscope were analyzed and some related measures for improvement were proposed.