Organic light-emitting-diode-based plasmonic dark-field microscopy

We propose and demonstrate a compact, alignment-free dark-field microscopy technique, termed as organic light-emitting-diode-based plasmonic dark-field microscopy. Experimental results show that it is capable of forming dark-field images of the specimens utilizing a highly integrated chip-scale plasmonic condenser. This technique has high z resolution and high imaging contrast and is suitable for the dynamics study near the contact regions of living cells and the substrate. © 2012 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 240.6680, 130.3120. Invented several hundred years ago, the optical micro-scope is still an irreplaceable tool for life science re-search today, because light is undoubtedly the best way to examine living cells noninvasively. As a special optical imaging technique, dark-field (DF) microscopy is a spec-tacular method to form high-contrast images of unstained transparent specimens. In order to form a bright speci-men image on a dark background, oblique rays from every azimuth are allowed to strike the samples, but onl