Millisecond autofocusing microscopy using neuromorphic event sensing

Rapid autofocusing is essential for many microscopic imaging applications. Existing methods either require complicated hardware implementations or slow z-stack image acquisition. In this work, we develop a new approach to achieve fast autofocusing using the neuromorphic event sensing technology, which detects the sparse brightness changes asynchronously and responds quickly to the specimen movement. A simple yet efficient autofocusing system is tailored for fast acquisition and processing of the non-redundant event data, allowing for autofocusing in only tens of milliseconds, which is thousands of times faster than current technologies. Experimental results show a substantial performance improvement and capability for biopsy specimen inspections. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported work on a neuromorphic methodology for autofocusing microscopy.