High-resolution digital transmission microscopy—a Fourier holography approach

A spherical reference field is used to construct a digital holographic system with a demonstrated resolution up to 228 line pairs per mm. The reference field originates from a GRIN lens placed 1 mm from the illuminated object. This allows the use of a standard sensor to record the hologram with the required numerical aperture. The image is determined by evaluation of the Rayleigh–Sommerfeld diffraction integral that relates the object field in the image plane to the object field in the sensor plane. Experimental results are given for two charge coupled device sensors and one complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor active pixel sensor.