Team develops plan for 3D-printed microscope, including lens, that costs less than $60

A team of physicists and engineers at the University of Strathclyde, in Scotland, working with a colleague from the University of Glasgow, has developed the means for 3D printing a microscope, including the lens, for under $60. In their paper posted on the bioRxiv preprint server, the group describes how they came up with the plans for the microscope and notes that the end result has a resolution strong enough to make out individual blood cells in test samples.

The cost of high-resolution microscopes can be prohibitively high for millions of students and researchers around the world. In this new study, the researchers in Scotland have developed plans, available for free online, that can be used to 3D-print a fully functional, high-resolution microscope.

The plans for producing the main structure of the microscope and its associated components, the researchers note, have been available for a while, courtesy of the OpenFlexure project. The trick was to find a way to 3D-print the lenses—typically, they are produced in high-precision factories, resulting in high costs.

The team started experimenting with 3D-printed lenses and found it was possible to print quality microscope lenses using a photopolymerizing clear resin on a Mars 3 Pro printer. In developing the specifications for their lenses, they followed those of the Edmund Optics 12.7 mm diameter plano-convex lens, which has a focal length of 35 mm.

The plans call for printing the microscope as a series of parts, including the lenses, which are then assembled to build a completely functional microscope. During testing of the microscope, the research team added an off-the-shelf light source and camera, which was controlled by a Raspberry Pi processor. Even with the additional components, the researchers note, the entire setup cost less than $60 and took less than three hours to create.

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