Three-dimensional super-resolving confocal scanning laser fluorescent microscopy (Q4356940)

Super-resolution in scanning microscopy has been suggested recently by using specially designed optical masks and two integrating detectors in place of the single pinhole and detector of a conventional confocal arrangement. The resolving power of such a microscope is significantly improved over the standard confocal one. The method provides an optical implementation of a data inversion algorithm based on singular-system theory. For incoherent light, the practical realization of the theoretically calculated mask, with a continuously changing profile, proves to be prohibitively difficult. A `binararised' mask that approximates this changing profile and yet preserves as much of the resolving power of the microscope as possible is then designed and is easy to manufacture. In previous work with both coherent and incoherent light the above programme has been realised for the two-dimensional low numerical aperture case. In this paper we present an extension to the full three-dimensional high-numerical-aperture case. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0871.00041].