Measurements on ATP induced cellular fluctuations using real-time dual view transport of intensity phase microscopy

Dual-view transport of intensity phase imaging flow cytometry

In this work, we design multi-parameter phase imaging flow cytometry based on dual-view transport of intensity (MPFC), which integrates phase imaging and microfluidics to a microscope, to obtain single-shot quantitative phase imaging on cells flowing in the microfluidic channel. The MPFC system has been proven with simple configuration, accurate phase retrieval, high imaging contrast, and real-time imaging and has been successfully employed not only in imaging, recognizing, and analyzing the flowing cells even with high-flowing velocities but also in tracking cell motilities, including rotation and binary rotation. Current results suggest that our proposed MPFC provides an effective tool for imaging and analyzing cells in microfluidics and can be potentially used in both fundamental and clinical studies.

sPhaseStation: a whole slide quantitative phase imaging system based on dual-view transport of intensity phase microscopy

Whole slide imaging scans a microscope slide into a high-resolution digital image, and it paves the way from pathology to digital diagnostics. However, most of them rely on bright-field and fluorescence imaging with sample labels. In this work, we designed sPhaseStation, which is a dual-view transport of intensity phase microscopy-based whole slide quantitative phase imaging system for label-free samples. sPhaseStation relies on a compact microscopic system with two imaging recorders that can capture both under and over-focus images. Combined with the field of view (FoV) scan, a series of these defocus images in different FoVs can be captured and stitched into two FoV-extended under and over-focus ones, which are used for phase retrieval via solving the transport of intensity equation. Using a 10× micro-objective, sPhaseStation reaches the spatial resolution of 2.19 µm and obtains the phase with high accuracy. Additionally, it acquires a whole slide image of a 3m m×3m m region in 2 min. The reported sPhaseStation could be a prototype of the whole slide quantitative phase imaging device, which may provide a new perspective for digital pathology.

Automatic whole blood cell analysis from blood smear using label-free multi-modal imaging with deep neural networks

Whole blood cell analysis is widely used in medical applications since its results are indicators for diagnosing a series of diseases. In this work, we report automatic whole blood cell analysis from blood smear using label-free multi-modal imaging with deep neural networks. First, a commercial microscope equipped with our developed Phase Real-time Microscope Camera (PhaseRMiC) obtains both bright-field and quantitative phase images. Then, these images are automatically processed by our designed blood smear recognition networks (BSRNet) that recognize erythrocytes, leukocytes and platelets. Finally, blood cell parameters such as counts, shapes and volumes can be extracted according to both quantitative phase images and automatic recognition results. The proposed whole blood cell analysis technique provides high-quality blood cell images and supports accurate blood cell recognition and analysis. Moreover, this approach requires rather simple and cost-effective setups as well as easy and rapid sample preparations. Therefore, this proposed method has great potential application in blood testing aiming at disease diagnostics.

Transformer oil quality evaluation using quantitative phase microscopy

Transformer oil used in oil-filled electrical power transformers aims at insulating, stopping arcing and corona discharge, and dissipating transformer heat. Transformer running inevitably induces molecule decomposition, thus leading to gases released into transformer oil. The released gases not only reduce the transformer oil's performance but also possibly induce transformer fault. To prevent catastrophic failure, approaches using, e.g., chromatography and spectroscopy, precisely measure dissolved gases to monitor transformer oil quality; however, many of these approaches still suffer from complicated operations, expensive costs, or slow speed. To solve these problems, we provide a new transformer oil quality evaluation method based on quantitative phase microscopy. Using our designed phase real-time microscopic camera (PhaseRMiC), under- and over-focus images of gas bubbles in transformer oil can be simultaneously captured during field of view scanning. Further, oil-to-gas-volume ratio can be computed after phase retrieval via solving the transport of intensity equation to evaluate transformer oil quality. Compared with traditionally and widely used approaches, this newly designed method can successfully distinguish transformer oil quality by only relying on rapid operations and low costs, thus delivering a new solution for transformer prognosis and diagnosis.

PhaseRMiC: phase real-time microscope camera for live cell imaging

We design a novel phase real-time microscope camera (PhaseRMiC) for live cell phase imaging. PhaseRMiC has a simple and cost-effective configuration only consisting of a beam splitter and a board-level camera with two CMOS imaging chips. Moreover, integrated with 3-D printed structures, PhaseRMiC has a compact size of 136×91×60 mm³, comparable to many commercial microscope cameras, and can be directly connected to the microscope side port. Additionally, PhaseRMiC can be well adopted in real-time phase imaging proved with satisfied accuracy, good stability and large field of view. Considering its compact and cost-effective device design as well as real-time phase imaging capability, PhaseRMiC is a preferred solution for live cell imaging.