A preliminary investigation: The impact of microscopic condenser on depth of field in cytogenetic imaging

As one of the important components of optical microscopes, the condenser has a considerable impact on system performance, especially on the depth of field (DOF). DOF is a critical technical feature in cytogenetic imaging that may affect the efficiency and accuracy of clinical diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of microscopic condenser on DOF using a prototype of transmitted optical microscope, based on objective and subjective evaluations. After the description of the relationship between condenser and objective lens and the theoretical analysis of the condenser impact on system numerical aperture and DOF, a standard resolution pattern and several cytogenetic samples are adopted to assess the condenser impact on DOF, respectively. The experimental results of these objective and subjective evaluations are in agreement with the theoretical analysis and show that, under the specific intermediate range of condenser numerical aperture ( NAcond ), the DOF value decreases with the increase of NAcond . Although the above qualitative results are obtained under the experimental conditions with a specific prototype system, the methods presented in this preliminary investigation could offer useful guidelines for optimizing operational parameters in cytogenetic imaging.