Pepe Francesco V, Di Lena Francesco, Mazzilli Aldo, Edrei Eitan, Garuccio Augusto, Scarcelli Giuliano, D'Angelo Milena
INFN, Sezione di Bari, I-70126 Bari, Italy.
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli studi di Bari, I-70126 Bari, Italy.
Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Dec 15;119(24):243602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.243602.
Traditional optical imaging faces an unavoidable trade-off between resolution and depth of field (DOF). To increase resolution, high numerical apertures (NAs) are needed, but the associated large angular uncertainty results in a limited range of depths that can be put in sharp focus. Plenoptic imaging was introduced a few years ago to remedy this trade-off. To this aim, plenoptic imaging reconstructs the path of light rays from the lens to the sensor. However, the improvement offered by standard plenoptic imaging is practical and not fundamental: The increased DOF leads to a proportional reduction of the resolution well above the diffraction limit imposed by the lens NA. In this Letter, we demonstrate that correlation measurements enable pushing plenoptic imaging to its fundamental limits of both resolution and DOF. Namely, we demonstrate maintaining the imaging resolution at the diffraction limit while increasing the depth of field by a factor of 7. Our results represent the theoretical and experimental basis for the effective development of promising applications of plenoptic imaging.
传统光学成像在分辨率和景深（DOF）之间面临不可避免的权衡。为了提高分辨率，需要高数值孔径（NA），但相关的大角度不确定性导致能够清晰聚焦的深度范围有限。几年前引入了全光成像来弥补这种权衡。为此，全光成像重建从镜头到传感器的光线路径。然而，标准全光成像提供的改进是实际的而非根本性的：增加的景深导致分辨率按比例降低，远高于由镜头NA施加的衍射极限。在本信函中，我们证明相关测量能够将全光成像推向其分辨率和景深的基本极限。具体而言，我们证明在将景深增加7倍的同时，将成像分辨率维持在衍射极限。我们的结果代表了有效开发全光成像有前景应用的理论和实验基础。
