Tailoring the point spread function of an aberrated optical imaging system with Hanning aperture

Abstract

The point spread function of the optical system in the presence of defocusing effect and the third order wave aberration such as primary spherical aberration with the Hanning amplitude mask is investigated. A significant improvement in the profile of the point spread function has been achieved. Employment of the Hanning amplitude pupil function under the higher degree of spherical aberration and defocusing situation renders the optical systems to perform like a super-resolver. The lateral resolution of the central peak is made to be improved by the highest degree of the amplitude apodization β. The presence of first minima with zero intensity suits the optical system for Rayleigh criterion to be applied for two-point resolution studies.