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Updated: Jun 7, 2026

Lensless Fluorescent Microscopy on a Chip
Published on: August 17, 2011
Apodized pixel lenses in compact shadow-casting correlators
Abstract:
We present a compact two-dimensional shadow-casting correlator that can perform correlation between inputs of size 256 × 256 and a point-spread function of size 32 × 32. A two-dimensional array of mutually incoherent sources is used to encode the point-spread function, and each source is individually steered to improve the light uniformity and the light-utilization efficiency. The geometric optics constraint requires that the shadow region be very close to the input plane. This constraint is removed by the introduction of apodized pixel lenses in the input spatial light modulator. The pixel lenses move the shadow plane to their Fourier plane, and pixel apodization reduces the interchannel cross talk, thereby improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Simulation and experimental results verifying these concepts are presented.
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