Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A system discriminates an in-focus image from an out-off-focus image so as to reduce both systematic and statistical errors in a measurement of the in-focus image. The system produces a probe beam and a reference beam from a point source, and antisymmetric spatial properties are produced in the reference beam. An in-focus return probe beam is produced as a result of directing a probe beam into an in-focus image point, and antisymmetric spatial properties are produced in the in-focus return probe beam. The reference beam is interfered with a beam from an out-of-focus image point, and the reference beam is interfered with the in-focus return probe beam. The reference beam is detected by a single-pixel detector as a square of an amplitude of the reference beam, and the in-focus return probe beam is detected by the detector as an interference term between a return reference beam and the in-focus return probe beam. An amplitude of an interference term between an amplitude of the out-of-focus image beam and an amplitude of the return reference beam is substantially reduced, resulting in reducing both systematic and statistical errors in data produced by the detector. In the described embodiment, the beam from the out-of-focus image point is an out-of-focus return probe beam.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim