Single-shot extended-object super-oscillatory imaging

Abstract

A point-spread function (PSF) that locally oscillates faster than its highest Fourier component can reconstruct the sub-diffraction information of objects in the far field without any near-field placements to break the diffraction limit. However, the spatial capacity of such super-oscillatory (SO) PSFs for carrying sub-diffraction information is restricted by high sidelobes surrounding a desired region of interest (ROI). Here, we propose generalized periodic SO masks without optimization to push the ROI borders away for imaging extended objects. Our imaging experiments without any image post-processing demonstrate single-shot extended-object SO imaging with extended ROIs more than ten times the size of some typical ROIs (around 2λ/NA) and a sub-wavelength resolution of 0.49λ. The SO sub-wavelength resolution (0.7 times the diffraction limit) remains robust to additive noise with a signal-to-noise ratio above 13 dB. Our method is applicable to lifting the ROI size restrictions for various SO applications such as high-density data storage, acoustic SO imaging, super-narrow frequency conversion, and temporal SO pulses.