Automatic tube lens design from stock optics for microscope remote-refocusing systems.

Area of Science:

• Optical Engineering
• Microscopy
• Computational Optics

Background:

• The remote-refocusing technique in fluorescence microscopy requires specific optical magnification ratios.
• Commercially available tube lenses often do not meet the precise magnification requirements for this technique.
• Manual selection of stock achromatic doublets for custom tube lenses is inefficient and time-consuming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop automated software tools for designing microscope tube lenses using stock achromatic doublets.
• To enable the creation of low-cost, diffraction-limited tube lenses suitable for remote-refocusing microscopy.
• To streamline the selection process of optical components for specific microscope applications.

Main Methods:

• Developed two MATLAB software packages, Catalogue Generator and Doublet Selector, utilizing the Zemax OpticStudio ZOS-API.
• Implemented an algorithm to optimize principal plane positions for compatibility with older Zemax versions (pre-20.2).
• Automated the search for stock achromatic doublets based on specified focal length, entrance pupil diameter, and field angle.

Main Results:

• Generated ten tube lens designs using the developed software.
• All software-generated tube lenses demonstrated superior optical performance compared to manually selected doublet pairs.
• The software successfully automates the selection of achromatic doublets, significantly reducing design time.

Conclusions:

• The developed MATLAB software provides an efficient and effective method for designing custom microscope tube lenses.
• This automation facilitates the practical implementation of remote-refocusing microscopy by overcoming tube lens limitations.
• The tools offer a cost-effective solution for achieving high-performance optical systems in microscopy.