Optical synthetic sampling imaging: Concept and an example of microscopy

Abstract

Digital two-dimensional spatial sampling devices have been widely used in various imaging systems, particularly in computational imaging systems. However, the undersampling of digital sampling devices is a problem that limits the resolution of the acquired images. Here, we propose synthetic sampling imaging to solve the undersampling problem. By moving the specimen from the focal plane but within the depth of field of the objective, the proposed approach allows sampling the specimen from the detection and illumination sides simultaneously. Then, it can synthesize the illumination and detection sampling to improve the sampling rate of the imaging system. An example of microscopy validated the feasibility of the proposed synthetic sampling imaging. The synthetic sampling scheme, in which the illumination and detection sides share the sampling task, provides a way of resolving the undersampling problem in digital imaging systems, especially in nonvisible light imaging systems.