An optical setup to achieve superresolution in microscopy using holographic recording is presented. The technique is based on off-axis illumination of the object and a simple optical image processing stage after the imaging system for the interferometric recording process. The superresolution effect can be obtained either in one step by combining a spatial multiplexing process and an incoherent addition of different holograms or it can be implemented sequentially. Each hologram holds the information of each different frequency bandpass of the object spectrum. We have optically implemented the approach for a low-numerical-aperture commercial microscope objective. The system is simple and robust because the holographic interferometric recording setup is done after the imaging lens.
A technique based on superresolution by digital holographic microscopic imaging is presented. We used a two dimensional (2-D) vertical-cavity self-emitting laser (VCSEL) array as spherical-wave illumination sources. The method is defined in terms of an incoherent superposition of tilted wavefronts. The tilted spherical wave originating from the 2-D VCSEL elements illuminates the target in transmission mode to obtain a hologram in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration. Superresolved images of the input object above the common lens diffraction limit are generated by sequential recording of the individual holograms and numerical reconstruction of the image with the extended spatial frequency range. We have experimentally tested the approach for a microscope objective with an exact 2-D reconstruction image of the input object. The proposed approach has implementation advantages for applications in biological imaging or the microelectronic industry in which structured targets are being inspected.
The use of vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays for implementation of incoherent source superresolution is presented. The method uses an interferometer setup to obtain superresolution in a single step. The novelty of the method relies on the use of a VCSEL array as the light source, which provides a set of coherent sources which are mutually incoherent. The technique accomplishes the transmission of several spatial frequency bands of the object's spectrum in parallel by use of spatial multiplexing that occurs because of the tilted illumination of the source array. The recording process is done by interference of each frequency band with a complementary set of reference plane waves. After the reconstruction process, the resolution of any optical system can approach the natural lambda/2 limit. The benefit of our system is improved modulation speed and hence more rapid image synthesis. Moreover, any desired synthetic coherent transfer function can be realized at ultrafast rates if we simply change the electrical drive of the VCSEL array.
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