Passive superresolution imaging of incoherent objects

Abstract

The need to observe objects that are smaller than the diffraction limit has led to the development of various superresolution techniques. However, most such techniques require active interaction with the sample, which may not be possible in multiple practical scenarios. The recently developed technique of Hermite–Gaussian imaging (HGI) achieves superresolution by passively observing the light coming from an object. This approach involves decomposing the incoming field into the Hermite–Gaussian basis of spatial modes and measuring the amplitude or intensity of each component. From these measurements, the original object can be reconstructed. However, implementing HGI experimentally has proven to be challenging, and previous achievements have focused on coherent imaging or parameter estimation of simple objects. In this paper, we implement interferometric HGI in the incoherent regime and demonstrate a three-fold improvement in the resolution compared to direct imaging. We evaluate the performance of our method under different noise levels. Our results constitute a step towards powerful passive superresolution imaging techniques in fluorescent microscopy and astronomy.