Optimized extended depth of focus simulated analysis for confocal microscopy.

In imaging systems and especially in confocal microscopy systems there is a trade-off between the lateral resolution and the obtained depth of focus. The use of complex pupils to improve the lateral resolution by engineering the point spread function is a common approach; however the lateral improvement reduces the effective depth of focus and therefore the fluorescence efficiency. In this work we analytically develop an optimized approach for obtaining a complex pupil with an extended depth of focus. The proposed solution is numerically applied and tested in designing an improved focal depth in confocal microscope configuration.