SSAM: Solid-State Automated Microscope

Abstract

Abstract-A new microscope system that is designed to provide images for a computer has been built and tested. This system differs from previous computerized microscopes in that the fundamental design parameters have been tuned to the computer as the receiver of the image instead of the human visual system. This solid-state automated microscope system (SSAM) simultaneously provides wide-field (2 mm), high-resolution (0.5 M), high signal-to-noise images (>53 dB) at data rates of 5 X 106 pixels/s. Various methods have been developed and used to test the design specifications of the system against the actual performance.

Luminescence Digital Imaging Microscopy

“…Numerous resolution targets and objects (e.g. beads) as well as image-processing procedures for their assess ment are available (37,65,90,99,101,102,154,227,234,236). (The United States National Bureau of Standards will shortly begin to provide standard beads in the 0.1-10 pm range for such calibrations (118; R. D. Larrabee, personal communication).]…”

Calibration: Sampling Density and Spatial Resolution

“…But due to poor electronics, noise, CCD chip design, and other elements in the total system, the resolution can certainly be worse. The results of using such a procedure on a specific microscope system (Young et al, ) are illustrated in Figure .…”

Luminescence Digital Imaging Microscopy

“…Numerous resolution targets and objects (e.g. beads) as well as image-processing procedures for their assess ment are available (37,65,90,99,101,102,154,227,234,236). (The United States National Bureau of Standards will shortly begin to provide standard beads in the 0.1-10 pm range for such calibrations (118;…”

“…a slide. In the fo llowing discussion, however, we restrict the defi nition of scanning microscopes to those instruments that operate on the principle of image formation by illumination and detection on a point-by-point (II, 134, 23 1) or line-by-line basis (236). Such systems are of three types.…”

“…3. In detector scanning systems, a linear array detector is either trans ported physically in the orthogonal direction or coupled to a rotating mirror or scanned stage for the generation of the second dimension (19,236).…”