A frugal microscopic device for cell morphology and counting features on a smartphone

Smartphone-based portable microscopic systems provide a viable alternative for meeting a variety of imaging and cell counting requirements in healthcare and other monitoring applications. Herein, we propose the design of a frugal microscopic imaging device that operates in bright-field mode using a smartphone for cell morphology and counting applications. Our device utilizes the inbuilt primary camera and the computational power of the phone. With the aid of readily available optical components, the designed platform is transformed into a high-throughput microscopic device. A custom-designed do-it-yourself (DIY) microfluidic chip, combined with a tailored Android app, simplifies the sample loading and automatic counting process. The microscopic device operates at three different optical magnifications and yields a lateral resolution of 1.21 µm over an acceptable field of view (FoV) of diameter ~4530 μm. The versatility of the system is demonstrated through imaging and counting of blood cells automatically. The results from our smartphone-based microscopic system show good agreement with values obtained from the widely used traditional hemocytometer. The affordability and portability of the proposed system suggest that it can be effectively implemented in resource-scarce areas. Additionally, we envision that the system would be significant for true point-of-care applications, research, and STEM education.