Resolution of a synthetic aperture laser optical feedback imaging using a galvanometric scanning.

We have improved the resolution of our laser optical feedback imaging (LOFI) setup by using a galvanometric scanning and two-dimensional angular synthetic aperture (SA) process. The experimental resolution of the classical LOFI images and of the SA LOFI images are compared for different working distances, and we show that the SA LOFI method is able to balance the degradation of the images resolution with increasing distance. We also show that the resolution of the SA LOFI images can be controlled by choosing the position of the galvanometric scanner between the laser and the target under investigation. Theoretical and experimental SA resolutions are compared.