Design considerations and performance of a compact LED illuminator for microscopes

Jorge Monteiro; Sushil Kumar Mendiratta; João C. Cascalheira

doi:10.1117/12.892204

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26 July 2011 Design considerations and performance of a compact LED illuminator for microscopes

Jorge Monteiro; Sushil Kumar Mendiratta; João C. Cascalheira

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Proceedings Volume 8001, International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics; 80014B (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892204
Event: International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, 2011, Braga, Portugal

Abstract

Conventional LED based illuminating systems for microscopes are either ring illuminators or expensive fiber optics based sources to input the light at the conventional places. Here we describe a different design strategy that leads to a compact, economical, relatively cool and more versatile source that is usable in the transmission as well as the reflection configuration; the module can be easily configured for discrete wavelengths for fluorescence markers and thus is suitable for biology related applications. We show the performance characteristics of the module that we have developed. Comparison measurements show that led based source that we have developed has adequate homogeneity of the illumination field, white leds lead to better contrast and use of narrow band leds have significant advantages over the conventional approach in fluorescence microscopy applications.

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Jorge Monteiro, Sushil Kumar Mendiratta, and João C. Cascalheira "Design considerations and performance of a compact LED illuminator for microscopes", Proc. SPIE 8001, International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, 80014B (26 July 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892204

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