Arnab Banerjee displays his tiny microscope. Picture by Soumen Bhattacharjee

Here comes a palmtop microscope, the brainwave of 27-year-old science graduate Arnab Banerjee. Available at a tenth of the price of a normal microscope, this tiny gadget ? of the size of a cigarette packet ? will enable students and researchers to have a closer look at the microscopic world. It can blow up an image around 6,000 times, far larger than the regular ones.

?Besides, the lens, being made of polymer, will not attract fungus. Keeping the lens clean is a major problem with conventional microscopes,? said Arnab, who earns a living by tutoring students.

It is fitted with a projector, so the object being viewed can also be screened. ?You can view objects in two resolutions. Thus, you may choose the device according to your need. In either case, the object can be projected on the screen,? he added.

The ?magnifier?, as Arnab calls the device, was selected for display at the fifth exhibition of the National Innovative Foundation, held in December in Ahmedabad.

Apart from students, he feels, the device will be of great help to personnel engaged in checking malaria outbreaks by organising outdoor camps.

Dearth of adequate microscopes at school sparked in him a determination to develop the device in a way that everyone could afford it. ?I heard from my teachers that the gadgets were very expensive and could not be procured in bulk. As there were only a handful of microscopes, each student would get too little time to use them,? recalled Arnab.

He started experimenting at his Sodepur home, on the northern fringes of the city, to devise an optical system that would work more effectively than a regular microscope and be cost effective, too.

?The gadget usually comprises an eyepiece and an objective. But the one I have developed has no such component. In fact, I modified the entire optical system to get a higher magnification,? Arnab added.

Experts working with school students, too, sounded enthusiastic about the product. ?It is, indeed, an excellent innovation,? said Ratan Chakrabarty, senior education officer at Birla Industrial and Technological Museum.

?It will help schoolchildren a lot. As the price has been kept low, the students will be able to buy it and explore the microscopic world on their own. It has come as a boon for students of biology,? he added.

Chakrabarty confirmed that magnification, a major parameter of the microscope, is quite high in the new device.

T. James, coordinator of the National Innovative Foundation, said over the phone from Gujarat: ?Our experts had spoken highly about the palmtop microscope.?

Arnab had applied for the product?s patent last year.