Synthetic aperture superresolved microscopy in digital lensless Fourier holography by time and angular multiplexing of the object information

Appl Opt. 2010 Feb 10;49(5):845-57. doi: 10.1364/AO.49.000845.

Abstract

The resolving power of an imaging system in digital lensless Fourier holographic configuration is mainly limited by the numerical aperture of the experimental setup that is defined by both the restricted CCD size and the presence of a beam splitter cube in front of the CCD. We present a method capable of improving the resolution in such a system configuration based on synthetic aperture (SA) generation by using time-multiplexing tilted illumination onto the input object. Moreover, a priori knowledge about the imaged object allows customized SA shaping by the addition of elementary apertures only in the directions of interest. Experimental results are provided, showing agreement with theoretical predictions and demonstrating a resolution limit corresponding with a synthetic numerical aperture value of 0.45.