A Folding Paper Microscope

Microscopes are important and ever-present tools in science, providing an vital, visual connection between the familiar macro-world we live in and the extraordinary underlying micro-world.

Foldscope can be described as an origami-based optical microscope that can be assembled from a flat sheet of thick printed paper that folds into shape and a lens.

It costs less than a dollar when separated parts, but can give over 2,000X magnification with sub-micron resolution (800nm), weighs less than two nickels (8.8 g), and is small enough to fit in a pocket (70 × 20 × 2 mm3). According to the inventor Manu Prakash of Stanford University, the Foldscope needs no external source of power, and can survive being dropped from a 3-story building or even being treaded on by a person. Its minimalistic nature and scalable design makes it inherently application-specific instead of its purpose being general in nature gearing towards applications in global health, field based citizen science and K12-science education.

The Foldscope is an amazing device which is useful and completely sturdy and can be used by anyone even children and costs hardly a dollar. With this microscope even the tiniest of insects and plants can be investigated and enlarged. Students belonging to all age groups can carry this device in their pocket and get involved in the field of Science from a young age.

This very light and rough device can provide a variety of imaging facilities. Foldscope removed cost barriers and provides for education in science in school and universities and the field of medicine.

By the principles of optical design along with origami, the fold scope can be made from a sheet of flat paper. The sample is kept on a microscope slide, turning the LED and can be viewed placing your eyes close to the lens, and your eyebrow should touch the paper and focusing can be done with your thumbs placed on opposite ends of the slide and moving them in unison to get better illumination stages

Foldscopes can also help in the work of healthcare and in diagnosing blood borne sickness at the basic level.
“The biggest thing we're trying to achieve is to make people interested," Manu Prakash stated. "Our objective is that every child should be able to carry a microscope in their pocket."

Last year, Prakash and his team distributed 10,000 Foldscopes to enthusiastic users willing to do a trial with them. Users submit their findings on the Foldscope site, with studies ranging from school kids looking at banana seeds to the detection of parasitic worms in human waste samples.

Prakash said "I want to make the best feasible disease-detection tool that could be almost distributed for free. The outcome of this project is a sort of use-and-throw microscopy," he said in a Stanford blog post last year.

However, Foldscope is not available at present; one would have to make their own.

Prakash's team says they are working hard to make the Foldscopes commercially available via a spinoff or startup."

Now all we need to do is wait and watch for the next developments.