Imaging without lenses: achievements and remaining challenges of wide-field on-chip microscopy

Abstract

In this perspective, the authors present the basic features of lens-free computational imaging tools and report performance comparisons with conventional microscopy methods. They also discuss the challenges that these computational on-chip microscopes face for their wide-scale biomedical application. We discuss unique features of lens-free computational imaging tools and report some of their emerging results for wide-field on-chip microscopy, such as the achievement of a numerical aperture (NA) of ∼0.8–0.9 across a field of view (FOV) of more than 20 mm2 or an NA of ∼0.1 across a FOV of ∼18 cm2, which corresponds to an image with more than 1.5 gigapixels. We also discuss the current challenges that these computational on-chip microscopes face, shedding light on their future directions and applications.