Superresolution beyond the diffraction limit using phase spatial light modulator between incoherently illuminated objects and the entrance of an imaging system

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography with point spread holograms of isolated chaotic islands for 3D imaging

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH) is an incoherent digital holographic technique with lateral and axial resolution similar to a regular lens-based imaging system. The properties of I-COACH are dictated by the shape of the system's point response termed point spread hologram (PSH). As previously shown, chaotic PSHs which are continuous over some area on the image sensor enable the system to perform three-dimensional (3D) holographic imaging. We also showed that a PSH of an ensemble of sparse dots improves the system's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) but reduces the dimensionality of the imaging from three to two dimensions. In this study, we test the midway shape of PSH, an ensemble of sparse islands distributed over the sensor plane. A PSH of isolated chaotic islands improves the SNR of the system compared to continuous chaotic PSH without losing the capability to perform 3D imaging. Reconstructed images of this new system are compared with images of continuous PSH, dot-based PSH, and direct images of a lens-based system. Visibility, SNR, and the product of visibility with SNR are the parameters used in the study. We also demonstrate the imaging capability of a system with partial annular apertures. The reconstruction results have better SNR and visibility than lens-based imaging systems with the same annular apertures.

Recent progress in digital holography with dynamic diffractive phase apertures [Invited]

Digital holography with diffractive phase apertures is a hologram recording technique in which at least one of the interfering waves is modulated by a phase mask. In this review, we survey several main milestones on digital holography with dynamic diffractive phase apertures. We begin with Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH), a hologram recorder with an aperture of a diffractive lens. FINCH has been used for many applications such as 3D imaging, fluorescence microscopy, superresolution, image processing, and imaging with sectioning ability. FINCH has played an important role by inspiring other digital holography systems based on diffractive phase aperture, such as Fourier incoherent single-channel holography and coded aperture correlation holography, which also are described in this review.

Depth-of-field engineering in coded aperture imaging

Extending the depth-of-field (DOF) of an optical imaging system without effecting the other imaging properties has been an important topic of research for a long time. In this work, we propose a new general technique of engineering the DOF of an imaging system beyond just a simple extension of the DOF. Engineering the DOF means in this study that the inherent DOF can be extended to one, or to several, separated different intervals of DOF, with controlled start and end points. Practically, because of the DOF engineering, entire objects in certain separated different input subvolumes are imaged with the same sharpness as if these objects are all in focus. Furthermore, the images from different subvolumes can be laterally shifted, each subvolume in a different shift, relative to their positions in the object space. By doing so, mutual hiding of images can be avoided. The proposed technique is introduced into a system of coded aperture imaging. In other words, the light from the object space is modulated by a coded aperture and recorded into the computer in which the desired image is reconstructed from the recorded pattern. The DOF engineering is done by designing the coded aperture composed of three diffractive elements. One element is a quadratic phase function dictating the start point of the in-focus axial interval and the second element is a quartic phase function which dictates the end point of this interval. Quasi-random coded phase mask is the third element, which enables the digital reconstruction. Multiplexing several sets of diffractive elements, each with different set of phase coefficients, can yield various axial reconstruction curves. The entire diffractive elements are displayed on a spatial light modulator such that real-time DOF engineering is enabled according to the user needs in the course of the observation. Experimental verifications of the proposed system with several examples of DOF engineering are presented, where the entire imaging of the observed scene is done by single camera shot.

Coded aperture correlation holographic microscope for single-shot quantitative phase and amplitude imaging with extended field of view

Recently, a method of recording holograms of coherently illuminated three-dimensional scene without two-wave interference was demonstrated. The method is an extension of the coded aperture correlation holography from incoherent to coherent illumination. Although this method is practical for some tasks, it is not capable of imaging phase objects, a capability that is an important benefit of coherent holography. The present work addresses this limitation by using the same type of coded phase masks in a modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We show that by several comparative parameters, the coded aperture-based phase imaging is superior to the equivalent open aperture-based method. As an additional merit of the coded aperture approach, a framework for increasing the system's field of view is formulated and demonstrated for both amplitude and phase objects. The combination of high sensitivity quantitative phase microscope with increased field of view in a single camera shot holographic apparatus, has immense potential to serve as the preferred tool for examination of transparent biological tissues.

Design of a superresolution large-aperture telescopic optical system with a wide field of view

A pupil modulator is a useful tool to improve the resolution of an optical imaging system beyond the classical diffraction limit. However, when this technology is used in a large-aperture telescopic imaging system, the field of view (FOV) with good superresolution (SR) imaging quality is significantly smaller than the designed FOV of the baseline optical system. In this paper, we investigate the influence of various aberrations on the SR properties of a telescopic system using a low sidelobe five-ring pure phase pupil modulator. On this basis, we propose an optimal design method for a wide FOV and a large-aperture telescopic baseline optical system with uniform image quality and a particular residue of symmetric aberration. The design results show that when the optimized 4 m aperture baseline optical system and the modulator are combined as the imaging system, the imaging system has a round and very similar point spread function in the FOV range of 0.28°; the SR gain ratio is 1.234-1.254; and the highest sidelobe intensity is less than 0.1; thus, the system maintains a high resolution ratio and a low sidelobe energy throughout the entire FOV. Finally, a reasonable tolerance model of the baseline optical system is established. The central symmetry tolerances are observed to be loose in this model, thereby reducing the cost and manufacturing difficulty of the system.

Ptychography imaging by 1-D scanning with a diffuser

It is beneficial to improve the resolution by a diffuser in imaging systems, because higher frequency information could be involved into the captured patterns via scattering effect. In this paper, a lensless imaging method is designed by 1-D scanning. A diffuser is placed upstream of the object, which is translated in a one-dimensional path and corresponding positions are corrected by cross-correlation. Our method requires a diffraction pattern of the object without a diffuser to speed up convergence and improve resolution. In field reconstruction, the amplitude constraint is added into the iterative phase retrieval algorithm. The high-quality complex-valued images can be obtained with ∼15 patterns. As a ptychography, the proposed method only needs a 1-D device, which could simplify the experimental equipment for reducing costs and measurement time.

Resolution-enhanced imaging using interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography with sparse point response

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH) is a non-scanning, motionless, incoherent digital holography technique. In this study we use a special type of I-COACH in which its point spread hologram (PSH) is ensemble of sparse dots. With this PSH an imaging resolution beyond the classic diffraction limit is demonstrated. This resolution improvement is achieved due to the position of the coded aperture between the object and the lens-based imaging system. The coded aperture scatters part of the light, that otherwise is blocked by the system aperture, into the optical system, and by doing that, extends the effective numerical aperture of the system. The use of sparse PSH increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the entire imaging system. A lateral resolution enhancement by a factor of about 1.6 was noted in the case of I-COACH compared to direct imaging.

Programmable liquid crystal display based noise reduced dynamic synthetic coded aperture imaging camera (NoRDS-CAIC)

Besides traditional lens-based imaging techniques, coded aperture imaging (CAI) can also provide target images but without using any optical lenses, therefore it is another solution in imaging applications. Most CAI methods reconstruct target image only from a single-shot coded image using a fixed coding mask; however, the collected partial information inevitably deteriorates the reconstruction quality. Though multi-exposure CAI methods are designed, these existed algorithms can hardly improve reconstruction signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spatial resolution simultaneously; additionally, dynamic coding mask display still requires expensive devices and complicated systems. In order to reconstruct target image with both enhanced spatial resolution and SNR but using cost-effective devices and a simple system, we design a noise reduced dynamic synthetic coded aperture imaging camera (NoRDS-CAIC) in this paper. The NoRDS-CAIC only consists of a programmable liquid crystal display (LCD) and an image recorder, and both of them are integrated with a three-dimensional printed shell with the compact size of 19 cm × 15 cm × 16 cm and controlled by our designed software to automatically realize coding mask display, coded image recording and target image reconstruction. When using the NoRDS-CAIC, the optimized coding mask is first sent to the programmable LCD and displayed, then the corresponding coded image is automatically captured using the image recorder. Next, cycle the above procedures to capture enough coded images with previously known coding masks and measured point spread functions (PSFs), and the target image can be finally reconstructed using our designed NoRDS-CAIC decoding algorithm, which is shown with better noise suppression capability and higher reconstruction resolution compared to other classical CAI algorithms. According to the experimental verifications, the NoRDS-CAIC can reach the high resolution of 99.2 µm and the high SNR of 19.43 dB, proving that the designed NoRDS-CAIC can be potentially used for lensless imaging in practical applications.

Spatial Multiplexing Technique for Improving Dynamic Range of Speckle Correlation based Optical Lever

Speckle correlation based optical levers (SC-OptLev) possess attractive characteristics suitable for sensing small changes in the angular orientations of surfaces. In this study, we propose and demonstrate a spatial multiplexing technique for improving the dynamic range of SC-OptLev. When the surface is in its initial position, a synthetic speckle intensity pattern, larger than the area of the image sensor is created by transversely shifting the image sensor and recording different sections of a larger speckle pattern. Then, the acquired images are stitched together by a computer program into one relatively large synthetic speckle pattern. Following the calibration stage, the synthetic speckle intensity pattern is used to sense changes in the surface's angular orientation. The surface is monitored in real-time by recording part of the speckle pattern which lies within the sensor area. Next, the recorded speckle pattern is cross-correlated with the synthetic speckle pattern in the computer. The resulting shift of the correlation peak indicates the angular orientations of the reflective surface under test. This spatial-multiplexing technique enables sensing changes in the angular orientation of the surface beyond the limit imposed by the physical size of the image sensor.

Interferenceless and motionless method for recording digital holograms of coherently illuminated 3D objects by coded aperture correlation holography system

Optical recording of digital holograms by coherent light traditionally involves interference between object and reference waves, which complicates the image acquisition process and decreases the power efficiency. In this work, we take the coded aperture correlation holography technique one step forward to record coherent digital holograms of three-dimensional scenes, without wave interference and in a motionless working mode. In addition to the explicit benefits of integrating interferenceless holographic imaging system with coherent illumination, the suggested method enables fast image acquisition implied by its inherent high signal-to-noise ratio. Experimental validation for diffusely reflective objects is also provided, making this relatively simple system appropriate for studying and using the speckle phenomena in coherent digital holography.

Noise suppression by controlling the sparsity of the point spread function in interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH)

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH) is an incoherent opto-digital technique for imaging 3D objects. In I-COACH, the light scattered from an object is modulated by a coded phase mask (CPM) and then recorded by a digital camera as an object digital hologram. To reconstruct the image, the object hologram is cross-correlated with the point spread function (PSF)-the intensity response to a point at the same object's axial location recorded with the same CPM. So far in I-COACH systems, the light from each object point has scattered over the whole camera area. Hence, the signal-to-noise ratio per camera pixel is lower in comparison to the direct imaging in which each point is imaged to a single image point. In this work, we consider the midway between the camera responses of a single point and of a continuous pattern over the entire camera area. The light in this study is focused onto a set of dots randomly distributed over the camera plane. With this technique, we show that there is a PSF with a best number of dots, yielding an image with a maximum product of the signal-to-noise ratio and the image visibility and a maximum value of structural similarity.