Abstract
Lateral resolution enhancement is demonstrated in a confocal imaging system with amplitude-modulated radially polarized (RP) light at the wavelength Annular pupil fields and optimized amplitude distribution functions can be realized with a spatial light modulator. By comparing images obtained with full and amplitude modulated apertures of RP illuminations using a high numerical aperture (NA = 0.9), spatial resolution of has been achieved experimentally. This result agrees very well with theoretical simulation results and will be helpful in improving performance of the non-fluorescent imaging systems.
Highlights
Polarized (RP) beams have attracted increasing interest due to their unique focusing properties
It has been shown that a Radially polarized (RP) beam focused by a high numerical aperture (NA) objective can generate a sharp focal spot because of its strong longitudinal component near focus [1, 2], which has potential in practical applications, such as optical tweezers and manipulation [3, 4], optical data storage [5], accelerators [6] and super-resolution microscopy [7]
One simple method is using an annular aperture pupil field to obtain a tighter focusing spot in a high NA system with RP beam illumination, this happens at the expense of stronger side lobes [11, 12]
Summary
Polarized (RP) beams have attracted increasing interest due to their unique focusing properties. The complete imaging process in a confocal system with a high NA objective illuminated by conventional, annular aperture and amplitude optimized pupil fields of RP beam to obtain a small focused spot is studied theoretically [15].
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