Toward fully three-dimensional-printed miniaturized confocal imager

Abstract

We present a disposable miniaturized confocal imager, consisting mostly of three-dimensional (3-D)-printed components. A 3-D printed laser scanner with 10x10 mm(2) frame size is employed for Lissajous scan, with 180 and 315 Hz frequencies in orthogonal directions corresponding to +/- 8 deg and +/- 4 deg optical scan angles, respectively. The actuation is done electromagnetically via a magnet attached to the scanner and an external coil. A miniaturized lens with 6-mm clear aperture and 10-mm focal length is 3-D printed and post-processed to obtain desired (<=lambda/5 surface roughness) performance. All components are press-fitted into a 3-D-printed housing having 17 mm width, which is comparable to many of the MEMS-based scanning imagers. Finally, line-scan from a resolution target and two-dimensional scanning in the sample location were demonstrated with the integrated device. (C) 2018 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)