Micromachined Transmissive Scanning Confocal Microscope

We have developed a miniature scanning confocal microscope that uses electrostatically actuated microlenses for focusing and scanning. Objective lenses, scanners, a pupil, and a pinhole of the confocal microscope are microfabricated and integrated into a volume smaller than 2 mm3 by stacking these components. Objective lenses are composed of two vertically cascaded polymer microlenses integrated into micromachined comb actuators. Raster scanning is implemented by electrostatically actuating each microlens in orthogonal directions. We have demonstrated reflection confocal imaging with 3-microm transverse resolution over a 100-microm field of view and a 0.38-mm working distance at lambda = 633 nm.