ioLight digital field microscopes

ioLight’s range of digital portable microscopes is built for getting images on the go, enabling scientists to capture and share professional-quality images in the field instead of bringing samples back to the lab. Offering high-end visual capabilities that fit into the user’s pocket, the portable digital microscopes fold flat and have dimensions of 160 x 101 x 32 mm.

The portable microscopes use standard microscope slides and feature adjustable top and bottom illumination for use on both biological and opaque samples. The sample stage is made from glass, enabling microscope slides and samples up to 35 mm thick to be easily positioned. It unfolds quickly to record and share 5 MP still images and real-time HD video at a magnification of 200x on an iPad Air.

The resolution is 1 µm — powerful enough to see the structure of plant and animal cells. It is particularly suitable for live samples, which deteriorate on the journey back to the lab, and it works anywhere, even without a Wi-Fi or mobile phone network. The internal rechargeable lithium battery lasts several hours when actively viewing images and longer in standby, so the battery lasts all day in typical use. Incorporating magnifications up to 400x, the powerful digital microscopes come in variations of 1 and 2 mm field of view.

Applications include observing plant and animal samples at the cellular level, field science, education and outreach, animal medicine, micro engineering, site surveys and any other application where portability and ease of use must not compromise image quality. The microscopes will even display limited structure in blood cells, which are 5–10 µm across. They are compatible with a tablet or phone running iOS 8.1 or Android 4.4 or higher, or a computer with Wi-Fi and Google Chrome (or another web browser).