A hyper-resolving polynomial aperture and its application in microscopy

Background A hyper-resolving aperture composed of a polynomial distribution is suggested. The point spread function (PSF) is computed and compared with that corresponding to linear, quadratic, and circular apertures. In addition, the influence of the number of zones on the PSF is discussed. An application on confocal scanning laser microscope using Siemen’s star pattern as an object considering the polynomial apertures is given. Results We have made polynomial apertures using MATLAB code, and we tested the resolution from the computation of the cut-off spatial frequency obtained from the computation of the point spread function. Conclusions We get compromised resolution and contrast for the polynomial apertures as compared with uniform circular apertures.