Transverse or axial superresolution with radial birefringent filter

The superresolution technique is well known for its ability to compress the central diffraction spot to a size that is smaller than the Airy diffraction spot. The radial birefringent filter, which consists of two parallel polarizers and a rotationally symmetric birefringent element, is introduced into the superresolution technology, and the pupil function of it is deduced. It is shown that such a filter can be adapted either for transverse superresolution or for axial superresolution simply by changing the angle between either of the two polarizers and the radial birefringent element. At the same time the superresolution parameters are discussed. The filter is relatively simple in construction as it requires no phase changes, and low-cost replication is possible.     

Design of three-dimensional superresolution filters and limits of axial optical superresolution

Theories to design a three-dimensional superresolution filter (TDSF) for confocal microscopy are proposed that can obtain a globally optimal solution through linear programming. The designed TDSF is proved to be a phase-only element introducing a phase delay of 0 or pi. Five design examples of the TDSF are presented to demonstrate the validity of these theories, Regardless of transverse superresolution, a curve of Seu(Ga+/-) defined as the maximum value of Strehl ratio S under the axial resolving power of Ga+/- is calculated to set the fundamental limits of axial optical superresolution. Finally, what is to our knowledge a novel analytic expression of Seu(Ga+/-) is deduced.     

Comparison of superresolution effects with annular phase and amplitude filters

The characteristics of annular amplitude and phase filters are compared. The behavior of two-zone phase and amplitude filters as the inner zone is increased is studied in detail. Numerical simulations show that a phase filter can achieve a superresolution effect, a circular Dammann effect, and flat-topped intensity for different applications, whereas a two-zone amplitude filter can generate only a superresolution effect. The experimental results show that both amplitude and phase filters can achieve superresolution. Generally, a phase superresolution filter is recommended for its higher efficiency and its special diffraction patterns that are impossible to achieve with an amplitude filter.     

Precise analysis of combination homogeneous-inhomogeneous-material superresolution filters with double-tunable modes

By using a Jones matrix, the precise expression for the pupil function of a two-adjustable-mode superresolving filter, a combination of a radial birefringent plate and a glass annular plate, is obtained. This filter can provide superresolution in both radial and axial adjustment operations, which can supplement each other in setting accuracy and superresolution range in practical use. As an adjustable filter, it is less dependent on wavelength. With the relative radius of the inner plate set to be epsilon=0.52 and the rotating angle set to be 45 degrees , this type of filter can achieve better superresolution performance than the continuous-phase filters reported in Opt. Lett.28, 607 (2003).     

Three-dimensional superresolution by three-zone complex pupil filters

Complex pupil filters are introduced to improve the three-dimensional resolving power of an optical imaging system. Through the design of the essential parameters of such filters, the transmittance and radius of the first zone, three-dimensional superresolution is realized. The Strehl ratio and the transverse and axial gains of such filters are analyzed in detail. A series of simulation examples of such filters are also presented that prove that three-dimensional superresolution can be realized. The advantage of such filters is that it is easy to realize three-dimensional superresolution, and the disadvantage is that the sidelobes of the axial intensity distribution are too high. But this can be overcome by the application of a confocal system.     

Annular pupils, radial polarization, and superresolution

An annular pupil, which can be used to produce a Bessel beam, when combined with radially polarized illumination promises improvements in microscope resolution, increased packing density for optical storage, and finer optical lithography. When combined with a circular detection pupil in confocal microscopy a point-spread function 112 nm wide results (lambda = 488 nm). Radially polarized annular illumination of a solid-immersion lens can yield a focal spot smaller than 100 nm for lambda = 488 nm. Use of radially polarized illumination with pupil masks is discussed.     

Pattern generation with an extended focal depth

The depth of focus of light patterns can be extended, within given tolerances, beyond the classical limits. For a quantitative evaluation we introduce a degree of depth-of-focus extension and a three-dimensional energy-distribution efficiency. The basic limitations involved in depth-of-focus extension are discussed. A coherent system in which the input is optimized for a desired output pattern is presented. An example of a pattern containing diffraction-limited line segments and a 4 times improvement in depth of focus is demonstrated. This task is much more difficult than generating patterns of isolated light spots in which the depth of focus is extended beyond an order of magnitude.     

High focal depth with a pure-phase apodizer

High-density optical data storage requires high-numerical-aperture (NA) lenses and short wavelengths. But, with increasing NA and decreasing wavelength, the depth of focus (DOF) decreases rapidly. We propose to use pure-phase superresolution apodizers to optimize the axial intensity distribution and extend the DOF of an optical pickup. With this kind of apodizer, the expected DOF can be 2-4.88 times greater than that of the original system, and the spot size will be smaller than that of the original system.     

基于遗传算法的超分辨多元环形滤光片设计

本文研究利用光学超分辨技术提高光盘存储密度.给出了一种可以达到衍射超分辨力的多元环形滤光片的设计结果.介绍了该多元环形滤光片的理论设计方法.之后用遗传算法设计了多组多元环形滤光片的结构参数,模拟结果显示设计的环形滤光片能使横向的半峰全宽半径值减小30%,达到提高信息存储密度的目的.另一方面该环形滤光片能使焦深不变或变长,减小了在记录过程中因为光盘的微小波动而引起的记录信息的错误率.     

Transverse or axial superresolution in a 4Pi-confocal microscope by phase-only filters

A novel procedure to design axial and transverse superresolving pupil filters for the 4Pi-confocal microscope is presented. The method is based on the use of a series of figures of merit developed to describe the effect of inserting two identical filters in the two arms of the illumination path of the microscope. As a practical implementation, we have applied our method to obtain superresolving continuous phase-only filters. Different resolution-improving phase functions are shown for the transverse and the axial direction. These filters provided axial gain up to 1.3 and transverse gain up to 1.4 without an increase in sidelobes.     

High focal depth with a quasi-bifocus birefringent lens

The Strehl definition along the axis of a birefringent lens sandwiched between two polarizers is studied analytically. The optic axis of the birefringent lens made of a uniaxial crystal is perpendicular to the lens axis, and the system behaves like a bifocus lens for proper orientation of the polarizers. The Sparrow criterion is employed for designing an imaging system with high depth of focus. It is shown that, when the two foci are separated by the Sparrow limit of resolution, the focal depth is maximum and the intensity point-spread function remains almost identical within this limit. The resolution according to the Rayleigh criterion in this zone is more than that of an ideal lens.     

Dynamically shifting the focal spot with tunable pupil filters

Abstract

It is popularly believed that when the focal spot is shifted far away from the optical axis of optical system with the pupil filter, it will be significantly aberrated. Therefore, the pupil filter is usually only used to adjust the distribution of the focal spot at the optical axis of optical system. In this paper, the special combination of the phase pupil filter shifting the focal spot and the high-pass filter eliminating the aberration of the focal spot is designed so that the focal spot can be shifted dynamically at the focal plane. By utilizing the Debye vector diffractive theory, the shifting behaviours of the focal spot are investigated in detail. The proof-of-principle experiment demonstrates the validation of the method for dynamically controlling the position of focal spot. This work is helpful to realize dynamically shifting the focal spot with the pupil filter and may find valuable applications in particle trapping, microscopes, optical engineering, and so on.     

Rainbow holography with large image depth

A synthetic slit method is used to record the rainbow hologram of a three-dimensional diffused object directly, without any lens. By controlling the position of the synthetic slit, we use this method to produce the reconstructed image of a hologram with much larger image depth than without such control.     

Design of microlenses with long focal depth based on the general focal length function

A general focal length function is proposed to design microlenses with long extended focal depth and high lateral resolution. The focal performance of the designed microlenses, including the actual focal depth, the focal spot size, and the diffraction efficiency, is calculated by rigorous electromagnetic theory and the boundary-element method for several f-numbers. In contrast to conventional microlenses, the numerical results indicate that the designed microlenses can exhibit long extended focal depth and good focal performance. It is expected that the long focal length function will be widely used to design microlenses with long focal depth characteristics.     

Phase-shifting apodizers for increasing focal depth

We propose the use of a phase-shifting apodizers to increase focal depth, and we study the axial and radial behavior of this kind of apodizer under the condition that the axial intensity distribution is optimized for high focal depth.     

Focal shift and extended focal depth with tunable pupil filter

Extended focal depth and focal shift are very important in microscopy, imaging and optical storage systems, and have attracted much attention in recent years. In order to obtain the extended focal depth and focal shift, a new kind of tunable pupil filter is proposed in this article. It consists of one half-wave plate between two quarter-wave plates, and the half-wave plate is made up of two zones that can rotate with respect to each other. By analyzing the intensity distribution in the focal region of the optical system with such a device, it reveals that focal shift can be realized by rotating any zone of the half-wave plate. When the phase difference of the two zones is π, the extended focal depth and transverse superresolution can be obtained at the same time. Therefore, it may be feasible to use such a tunable pupil filter in optical systems that need focal shift and extended focal depth.     

Face recognition performance with superresolution

With the prevalence of surveillance systems, face recognition is crucial to aiding the law enforcement community and homeland security in identifying suspects and suspicious individuals on watch lists. However, face recognition performance is severely affected by the low face resolution of individuals in typical surveillance footage, oftentimes due to the distance of individuals from the cameras as well as the small pixel count of low-cost surveillance systems. Superresolution image reconstruction has the potential to improve face recognition performance by using a sequence of low-resolution images of an individual's face in the same pose to reconstruct a more detailed high-resolution facial image. This work conducts an extensive performance evaluation of superresolution for a face recognition algorithm using a methodology and experimental setup consistent with real world settings at multiple subject-to-camera distances. Results show that superresolution image reconstruction improves face recognition performance considerably at the examined midrange and close range.     

Shift- and scale-invariant recognition of contour objects with logarithmic radial harmonic filters

The phase-only logarithmic radial harmonic (LRH) filter has been shown to be suitable for scale-invariant block object recognition. However, an important set of objects is the collection of contour functions that results from a digital edge extraction of the original block objects. These contour functions have a constant width that is independent of the scale of the original object. Therefore, since the energy of the contour objects decreases more slowly with the scale factor than does the energy of the block objects, the phase-only LRH filter has difficulties in the recognition tasks when these contour objects are used. We propose a modified LRH filter that permits the realization of a shift- and scale-invariant optical recognition of contour objects. The modified LRH filter is a complex filter that compensates the energy variation resulting from the scaling of contour objects. Optical results validate the theory and show the utility of the newly proposed method.     

Spectral superresolution with ultrashort optical pulses

A superresolution technique for the measurement of transmission, reflection, and absorption spectra is proposed. An ultrashort laser pulse is propagated in a dispersive element and then periodically phase modulated. The temporal modulation is transformed into periodic spectral modulation, for which the number of harmonics, 2M+1, is determined by the modulation index. The modulated pulse is transmitted through (reflected from) the sample to be tested and measured by a spectrometer. By performing 2M+1 measurements for 2M+1 delays between the dispersed pulse and modulation signal, one can restore the spectral response of the sample with superresolution after simple processing. We numerically demonstrate the measurement of the transmission spectrum of an ultranarrow optical filter with a minimum feature of 0.43 pm by an optical spectrum analyzer with a 10 pm resolution. A twentyfold enhancement of the resolution is achieved in the presence of noise with a level of 0.1%. The advantage of the system is its full reconfigurability.     

The realization of long focal depth with a linear varied-area zone plate

We report a linear varied-area zone plate, in which arbitrary long focal depth can be achieved by properly adjusting the corresponding parameters. Meanwhile, the lateral focal spot and side lobes can be kept very small. Numeral simulations are carried out to verify the performance of our zone plate through Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction theory, and the results are in good accord with the experimental verifications. The influences of our zone plate’s parameters to the intensity distribution in focal region are discussed in detail. Comparisons are made with the behaviour of a linear varied-line-space grating, and we find that the behaviour of our novel zone plate along optical axis is just like a reverse transformation of the focusing behaviour of a linear varied-line-space grating.