Fourier lightfield microscopy: a practical design guide

Abstract

In this work, a practical guide for the design of a Fourier lightfield microscope is reported. The fundamentals of the Fourier lightfield are presented and condensed on a set of contour plots from which the user can select the design values of the spatial resolution, the field of view, and the depth of field, as function of the specifications of the hardware of the host microscope. This work guides the reader to select the parameters of the infinity-corrected microscope objective, the optical relay lenses, the aperture stop, the microlens array, and the digital camera. A user-friendly graphic calculator is included to ease the design, even to those who are not familiar with the lightfield technology. The guide is aimed to simplify the design process of a Fourier lightfield microscope, which sometimes could be a daunting task, and in this way, to invite the widespread use of this technology. An example of a design and experimental results on imaging different types of samples is also presented.