The Frankenscope: a microscopic multi-tool

MICROSCOPY 2026-06-10

This microscope consists of a Mitutoyo FS70L4 as its core, shown here from both sides:

Mitutoyo FS70L4 microscope body, right side view — FIG. 01 — FS70L4 core, right side.

Mitutoyo FS70L4 microscope body, left side view — FIG. 02 — FS70L4 core, left side.

It uses a Physik Instrumente six-axis closed-loop piezo hexapod for high-precision sample manipulation, kindly provided by Prof. Dr. Georg Sommerer at the Berliner Hochschule für Technik (laserscience.berlin).

Physik Instrumente six-axis hexapod stage — FIG. 03 — PI six-axis closed-loop piezo hexapod.

It is currently equipped with a passively Q-switched 1064 nm DPSS laser, or an optional TEEM Photonics 266 nm sub-nanosecond-pulsewidth deep-UV laser for the most delicate work (teardown documentation coming soon).

TEEM Photonics 266 nm deep UV laser — FIG. 04 — TEEM Photonics 266 nm head, <1 ns pulses.

Core	Mitutoyo FS70L4
Stage	PI six-axis closed-loop piezo hexapod
Sources	1064 nm DPSS (pQS) · 266 nm TEEM Photonics, <1 ns
Spectrometer	Ocean Optics USB2000+ UV-NIR (LIBS / Raman)
Illumination	TILL Photonics Polychrome IV tunable Xe short-arc source
Control	LabJack T4

Additional components include an Ocean Optics USB2000+ UV-NIR spectrometer for LIBS and Raman analysis, a TILL Photonics Polychrome IV tunable-wavelength short-arc xenon light source, and a LabJack T4 for general control. It is also capable of conducting infrared in-situ microscopy — IRIS for short. See Bunnie Huang’s work for more about that :-)