Abstract
Structured illumination applied to imaging interferometric microscopy (IIM) allows extension of the resolution limit of low numerical aperture objective lenses to ultimate linear systems limits (<approximately lambda/4 in air) without requiring a reference beam around the objective lens. Instead, the reference beam is provided by an illumination beam just at the edge of the optical system numerical aperture resulting in a shift of the recorded spatial frequencies (equivalent to an intermediate frequency). The restoration procedure is discussed. This technique is adaptable readily to existing microscopes, since extensive access to the imaging system pupil plane is not required.
Highlights
It is not necessary to explain the importance of resolution enhancement for millions of existing optical microscopes
We have previously demonstrated imaging interferometric microscopy (IIM) for the resolution enhancement of low numerical-aperture (NA) microscopes, using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer around the optical system, taking multiple offset partial images covering different regions of spatial frequency space, and synthesizing a complete image from these partial images [8, 11]
Tilting the image plane in IIM allowed a close approach to the minimum theoretical linear systems resolution limit of ~ λ/4 [11,13]
Summary
It is not necessary to explain the importance of resolution enhancement for millions of existing optical microscopes. We have previously demonstrated imaging interferometric microscopy (IIM) for the resolution enhancement of low numerical-aperture (NA) microscopes, using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer around the optical system, taking multiple offset partial images covering different regions of spatial frequency space, and synthesizing a complete image from these partial images [8, 11]. IIM requires building an interferometric system around the objective lens, and provides an optical solution to recording high spatial frequencies in the image plane. G. a smaller camera pixel count is sufficient as compared with the previous demonstrations) Another advantage of this method in comparison with conventional IIM is greater stability, due to the possibility of a much more compact interferometer, which no longer has to include the objective lens and other associated optics
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