ArticleBiomedical optics express2026
Low-cost 3D-printed optics for super-resolution multifocal structured illumination microscopy.
Article in Biomedical optics express, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mesolens imaging in microbiology.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Convergent methodologies in prosthetic joint infection research: integrating transdisciplinary approaches to understand and prevent biofilm-driven failure of orthopaedic prostheses.Journal of medical microbiology · 2026Review
- Advances in Technology and Applications of Optical Sensing and Imaging for Biomedicine: introduction.Biomedical optics express · 2026Article
- Low-cost 3D-printed optics for super-resolution multifocal structured illumination microscopy.Biomedical optics express · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We present a low-cost 3D-printing method of fabricating optical quality lenslet arrays for integration in a multifocal structured illumination microscope (mSIM), achieving super-resolution fluorescence imaging using 3D-printed optics for the first time. We detail the design and manufacturing processes to produce high-quality 3D-printed optics, showing their comparable surface roughness of 30 ± 2.5 nm for the 3D-printed elements compared to 37 ± 1.4 nm for commercial glass optics. A 3D-printed lenslet array with a 'honeycomb' geometry and 1.2 mm lenslet diameter was compared to a high-end glass commercial lenslet array with 250 µm lenslet diameter and a lower cost commercial lenslet array with a 1 mm by 1.4 mm lenslet footprint. The imaging performance of the different optics was benchmarked using a custom mSIM setup by quantifying the beam profile homogeneity and the experimental lateral resolution. The mSIM setup incorporating the different microlens arrays was tested using a commercial bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cell specimen, highlighting an achievable resolution enhancement from 237 nm ± 12 nm with laser-scanning illumination to 151 ± 12 nm using the high-end commercial microlens array and from 232 ± 18 nm with laser-scanning illumination to 151 nm ± 12 nm using the 3D-printed honeycomb lenslet array. Advantages of improved background rejection through the custom lenslet geometry are discussed, highlighting the super-resolution microscope performance achievable using custom 3D-printed optics costing as low as £0.50 to produce.
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Registered trials
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