Super resolved optical system for objects with finite sizes using circular gratings

We present a real time all optical super resolution method for exceeding the diffraction limit of an imaging system which has a circular aperture. The resolution improvement is obtained using two fixed circular gratings which are placed in predetermined positions. The circular gratings generate synthetic circular duplications of the aperture, thus they are the proper choice for a circular aperture optical system. The method is applicable for both spatially coherent and incoherent illuminations, as well as for white light illumination. The resolution improvement is achieved by limiting the object field of view. The proposed method is presented analytically, demonstrated via numerical simulat…