Concept of coherence aperture and pathways toward white light high-resolution correlation imaging

Abstract

Self-interference correlation imaging is a recently discovered method that takes advantage of holographic reconstruction when using a spatially incoherent light. Although the temporal coherence of light significantly influences the resolution of the method, it has not been studied either theoretically or experimentally. We present the first systematic study of the resolution in a broadband correlation imaging based on the concept of coherence-induced diffraction. We show that the physical limits of the resolution are reached in a non-dispersive experiment and their examination can be performed by the coherence aperture whose width depends on the coherence length of light and the optical path difference of interfering waves. As the main result, the optimal configuration of the non-dispersive experimental system is found in which the sub-diffraction image resolution previously demonstrated for monochromatic light can be retained even when the white light is used. Dispersion effects that prevent reaching the physical resolution limits are discussed and the dispersion sensitivity of the currently available experiments examined. The proposed concept of the coherence aperture is verified experimentally and its generalization to the concept of the dispersion-induced aperture suggested. As a challenge for future research, possible methods of dispersion elimination are outlined that allow the design of advanced optical systems enabling implementation of the high-resolution white light correlation imaging.