Synthesis of Super-Oscillatory Point-Spread Functions with Taylor-Like Tapered Sidelobes for Advanced Optical Super-Resolution Imaging

Abstract

Recently, the super-oscillation phenomenon has attracted attention because of its ability to super-resolve unlabelled objects in the far-field. Previous synthesis of super-oscillatory point-spread functions used the Chebyshev patterns where all sidelobes are equal. In this work, an approach is introduced to generate super-oscillatory Taylor-like point-spread functions that have tapered sidelobes. The proposed method is based on the Schelkunoff’s super-directive antenna theory. This approach enables the super-resolution, the first sidelobe level and the tapering rate of the sidelobes to be controlled. Finally, we present the design of several imaging experiments using a spatial light modulator as an advanced programmable grating to form the Taylor-like super-oscillatory point-spread functions and demonstrate their superiority over the Chebyshev ones in resolving the objects of two apertures and of a mask with the letter E.