User-friendly Oblique Plane Microscopy on a fully functional commercially available microscope base

Abstract

In this work we present an Oblique Plane Microscope designed to work seamlessly with a commercially available microscope base. To support all the functionality offered by the microscope base, where the position of the objective lens is not fixed, we adopted a two-mirror scanning geometry that can compensate for changes to the position of the objective lens during routine microscope operation. We showed that within the expected displacement range of the 100X, 1.35 NA objective lens away from its designed position, and for most practical applications, there is no significant effect on the resolving power, or the fidelity of the 3D data produced by the microscope. Compared to the more traditional scan-lens/galvo-mirror combination, the two-mirror scanning geometry offers higher light-efficiency and a more compact footprint, which could be beneficial to all OPM designs regardless of the use of a commercial base or not.