This work presents a new super-resolution imaging approach by using subwavelength hole resonances. We employ a subwavelength structure in which an array of tiny holes are etched in a metallic slab with the neighboring distance $\ell$ that is smaller than half of the wavelength. By tuning the incident wave at resonant frequencies, the subwavelength structure generates strong illumination patterns that are able to probe both low and high spatial frequency components of the imaging sample sitting above the structure. The image of the sample is obtained by performing stable numerical reconstruction from the far-field measurement of the diffracted wave. It is demonstrated that a resolution of $\ell/2$ can be obtained for reconstructed images, thus one can achieve super-resolution by arranging multiple holes within one wavelength.
The proposed approach may find applications in wave-based imaging such as electromagnetic and ultrasound imaging. It attains two advantages that are important for practical realization. It avoids the difficulty to control the distance the between the probe and the sample surface with high precision. In addition, the numerical reconstructed images are very stable against noise by only using the low frequency band of the far-field data in the numerical reconstruction.
A theorem on subwavelength imaging with arrays of discrete sources is formulated. This theorem is analogous to the Kotelnikov (also named Nyquist-Shannon) sampling theorem as it represents the field at an arbitrary point of space in terms of the same field taken at discrete points and imposes similar limitations on the accuracy of the image. A physical realization of an imaging system operating exactly on the resolution limit enforced by the theorem is outlined.
We report the experimental demonstration of deeply subwavelength far-field optical imaging of unlabelled samples with resolution better than $λ/20$. We beat the ~$λ$/2 diffraction limit of conventional optical microscopy several times over by recording the intensity pattern of coherent light scattered from the object into the far-field. We retrieve information about the object with a deep learning neural network trained on scattering events from a large set of known objects.
Metallic nano-structured lens has the potential applications of transporting subwavelength imaging information and it is achieved by manipulating the length of the nanorod and the periodicity of the rod array. In this paper, we demonstrate the impact of filling ratio on the subwavelength imaging capabilities of such a lens. Through full-wave electromagnetic simulation, we have demonstrated that the imaging performance of silver (Ag) nanorod array does not only depend on the length and periodicity but also on the filling ratios or the radius of the wire medium. We have investigated two differen…
Recently it was reported that deeply subwavelength features of free space superoscillatory electromagnetic fields can be observed experimentally and used in optical metrology with nanoscale resolution [Science 364, 771 (2019)]. Here we introduce a new type of imaging, termed Deeply Subwavelength Superoscillatory Imaging (DSSI), that reveals the fine structure of a physical object through its far-field scattering pattern under superoscillatory illumination. The object is reconstructed from intensity profiles of scattered light recorded for different positions of the object in the superoscillato…
In this letter we study the subwavelength imaging of sparse broadband sources inside a disordered medium by processing the data acquired by a single antenna. A mathematical model has been developed for solving such problem based on the idea of sparse reconstruction. We show that the strongly disordered medium can serves as an efficient apparatus for compressive measurement, which shifts the complexity of devising compressive sensing (CS) hardware from the design, fabrication and electronic control. The proposed method and associated results can find applications in several imaging disciplines,…
A type of tunable plasmonic lens with nanoslits is proposed for subwavelength imaging in the far field at different wavelengths. The nanoslits array in the plasmonic lens, which have constant depths but varying widths, could generate desired optical phase retardations based on the particular propagation property of the Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) in the metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) slit waveguides. We theoretically and numerically demonstrate the tunability of a single plasmonic lens for subwavelength imaging (full width at half maximum, 0.37 ~0.47) by adjusting the surrounding dielectri…
Recently a hypothesis explaining the non-resonant mechanism of subwavelength imaging granted by a dielectric microsphere has been suggested. In accordance to the hypothesis, the far-field image of a subwavelength scatterer strongly coupled to a microsphere by near fields is offered by the scatterer polarization normal to the sphere surface. The radiation of a closely located normally oriented dipole is shaped by the microsphere so that the transmitted wave beam has a practically flat phase front. Then this beam turns out to be imaging -- keeping the subwavelength information about the dipole l…
We show that a metallic plate with fractal-shaped slits can be homogenitized as a plasmonic metamaterial with plasmon frequency dictated by the fractal geometry. Owing to the all-dimensional subwavelength nature of the fractal pattern, our system supports both transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic surface plasmons. As a result, this structure can be employed to focus light sources with all-dimensional subwavelength resolutions and enhanced field strengths. Microwave experiments reveal that the best achievable resolution is only, and simulations demonstrate that similar effects can be rea…
Role of the normal polarization in the far-field subwavelength imaging granted by a dielectric microsphere or microcylinder is discussed and the hypotheses explaining this experimental fact are suggested. One of these hypotheses is confirmed by exact numerical simulations. This mechanism of the magnifying superlens operation is based on the excitation of creeping waves at a curved dielectric interface by a normally polarized dipole. The set of creeping waves after their ejection from the surface creates an imaging beam which may mimic either a Bessel beam or a Mathieu beam depending on the mic…
We introduce the concept of subwavelength imaging with an opaque nonlinear left-handed lens by generating the second-harmonic field. We consider a slab of composite left-handed metamaterial with quadratic nonlinear response and show that such a flat lens can form, under certain conditions, an image of the second-harmonic field of the source being opaque at the fundamental frequency.
Imaging with a layered superlens is a spatial filtering operation characterized by the point spread function (PSF). We show that in the same optical system the image of a narrow sub-wavelength Gaussian incident field may be surprisingly dissimilar to the PSF, and the width of PSF is not a straightforward measure of resolution. FWHM or std. dev. of PSF give ambiguous information about the actual resolution, and imaging of objects smaller than the FWHM of PSF is possible. A multiscale analysis of imaging gives good insight into the peculiar scale-dependent properties of sub-wavelength imaging.
The far-field subwavlength imaging is a challenging issue. In this letter we demonstrate numerically that the far-field subwavelength imaging of weakly scattering objects can be obtained by processing the data acquired by a single antenna, which benefits from the use of the strongly disordered medium. A mathematical model has been proposed for solving such problem based on the idea of sparse reconstruction. Moreover, this study leads to an important conclusion that the strongly disordered medium can serves as an efficient apparatus for the single-antenna compressive measurement, which shifts t…
A compressed sensing scheme for near-field imaging of corrugations of relative sparse Fourier components is proposed. The scheme employs random sparse measurement of near field to recover the angular spectrum of the scattered field. It is shown heuristically and numerically that under the Rayleigh hypothesis the angular spectrum is compressible and amenable to compressed sensing techniques. Iteration schemes are developed for recovering the surface profile from the angular spectrum. The proposed nonlinear least squares in the Fourier basis produces accurate reconstructions even when the Raylei…
Imaging below the diffraction limit is always a public interest because of the restricted resolution of conventional imaging systems. To beat the limit, evanescent harmonics decaying in space must participate in the imaging process. Here, we introduce the method of spatial spectrum sampling, a novel far-field superresolution imaging method for microwave and terahertz regime. Strong dispersion and momentum conservation allow the spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSP) structure to become a sensitive probe for spatial harmonics. This enables that the spatial information of the targets including b…
Microsphere-based subwavelength imaging technique was first demonstrated in 2011. After nearly a decade of efforts, such technique has spawned numerous interests in fields such as laser nano-machining, imaging, sensing and biological detection. For wider industrial scale application of the technique, a robust, low-cost objective lens incorporating microsphere lens is highly desired and sought by many researchers. In this work, we demonstrate a unibody microscope objective lens formed by tipping a high-index microsphere onto a Plano-Convex lens and subsequently fitting them into a conventional …
Both explicit analysis and FEM numerical simulation are used to analyze the field distribution of a line current in the so-called Maxwell's fish eye lens, which has been claimed recently to be able to achieve perfect imaging. We show that such a Maxwell's fish eye lens cannot give perfect imaging due to the fact that high order modes of the object field can hardly reach the image point in the Maxwell's fish eye. If only zero order mode is excited, a subwavelength image can be achieved, however, its spot-size is larger than the spot size of the source field. The image resolution is determined b…
In this paper we study the characteristics of subwavelength imaging of a photonic crystal (PhC) superlens under the influence of source displacement. For square- and triangular-lattice photonic crystal lenses, we investigate the influence of changing the lateral position of a single point source on the imaging uniformity and stability. We also study the effect of changing the geometrical center of a pair of sources on the resolution of the double-image. Both properties are found to be sensitive to the displacement, which implies that a PhC slab cannot be treated seriously as a flat lens. We al…
Far-field characterization of small objects is severely constrained by the diffraction limit. Existing tools achieving sub-diffraction resolution often utilize point-by-point image reconstruction via scanning or labelling. Here, we present a new imaging technique capable of fast and accurate characterization of two-dimensional structures with at least wavelength/25 resolution, based on a single far-field intensity measurement. Experimentally, we realized this technique resolving the smallest-available to us 180-nm-scale features with 532-nm laser light. A comprehensive analysis of machine lear…
We investigate the subwavelength imaging capacity of a two-dimensional fanned-out plasmonic waveguide array, formed by air channels surrounded by gold metal layers for operation at near-infrared wavelengths, via finite element simulations. High resolution is achieved on one side of the device by tapering down the channel width while simultaneously maintaining propagation losses of a few dB. On the other, low-resolution side, output couplers are designed to optimize coupling to free space and to minimize channel cross talk via surface plasmons. Point sources separated by λ/15 can still be clear…
Multilayered structures consisting of alternating negative-permittivity and dielectric layers are explored to obtain high-resolution imaging of subwavelength objects. The peaks with the smallest |ky| (ky is the transverse wave vector) on the transmission curves, which come from the guided modes of the multilayered structures, can not be completely damped by material loss. This makes the amplitudes of the evanescent waves around these peaks inappropriate after transmitted through the imaging structures, and the imaging quality is not good. To solve such a problem, the permittivity of the dielec…
Subwavelength imaging by microsphere lenses is a promising label-free super-resolution imaging technique. There is a growing interest to use live cells to replace the widely used non-biological microsphere lenses. In this work, we demonstrate the use of yeast cells for such imaging purpose. Using fiber-based optical trapping technique, we successfully trapped a chain of yeast cells and bring them to the vicinity of imaging objects. These yeast cells work as near-field magnifying lenses and simultaneously pick up the sub-diffraction information of the nanoscale objects under each cell and proje…
We examine the possibility of using negative refraction stemming from the phonon response in an anisotropic crystal to create a simple slab lens with plane parallel sides, and show that imaging from such a lens should be possible at room temperature despite the effects of absorption that are inevitably present due to phonon damping. In particular, we consider the case of crystal quartz, a system for which experimental measurements consistent with all-angle negative refraction have already been demonstrated. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility of subwavelength imaging from such material…
Simulation of detecting photoelectrons using multi-level multi-electron (MLME) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method with an application to near-field subwavelength imaging based on semiconductor nanophotodetector (NPD) array is reported. The photocurrents from the photodiode pixels are obtained to explore the resolution of this novel NPD device for subwavelength imaging. One limiting factor of the NPD device is the optical power coupling between adjacent detector pixels. We investigate such power coupling in the presence of absorbing media as well as the spatial distributions of the ele…
Both explicit analysis and FEM numerical simulation are used to analyze the field distribution of a line current in the so-called Maxwell's fish eye lens [bounded with a perfectly electrical conductor (PEC) boundary]. We show that such a 2D Maxwell's fish eye lens cannot give perfect imaging due to the fact that high order modes of the object field can hardly reach the image point in Maxwell's fish eye lens. If only zeroth order mode is excited, a subwavelength image of a sharp object may be achieved in some cases, however, its spot-size is larger than the spot size of the initial object field…
The problem of imaging extended targets (sources or scatterers) is formulated in the framework of compressed sensing with emphasis on subwavelength resolution. The proposed formulation of the problems of inverse source/scattering is essentially exact and leads to the random partial Fourier measurement matrix. In the case of square-integrable targets, the proposed sampling scheme in the Littlewood-Paley wavelet basis block-diagonalizes the scattering matrix with each block in the form of random partial Fourier matrix corresponding to each dyadic scale of the target. The resolution issue is anal…
Using a spatially structured, optical pump pulse with a THz probe pulse, we are able to determine spatial variations of the ultrafast THz photoconductivity with sub-wavelength resolution (75 $μm \approx λ/5$ at 0.8 THz) in a planar graphene sample. We compare our results to Raman spectroscopy and correlate the existence of the spatial inhomogeneities between the two measurements. We find a strong correlation with inhomogeneity in electron density. This demonstrates the importance of eliminating inhomogeneities in doping density during CVD growth and fabrication for photoconductive devices.
The limited resolution of a conventional optical microscope stems from the fact that the subwavelength information of an object is carried by evanescent waves, which exponentially decays in space and cannot reach the imaging plane. We introduce here a metamaterial solid immersion lens (mSIL), which utilizes closely-packed high-index nanoparticles as a composite media to effectively convert and transport evanescent waves from near-field to far-field. About 20% of evanescent wave energy of an ideal point source can be directed into far-field by mSIL. This has led to the exceptional imaging perfo…
We present a direct experimental investigation of the optical field distribution around a suspended tapered optical nanofiber by means of a fluorescent scanning probe. Using a 100 nm diameter fluorescent bead as a probe of the field intensity, we study interferences made by a nanofiber (400 nm diameter) scattering a plane wave (568 nm wavelength). Our scanning fluorescence near-field microscope maps the optical field over 36 $μ$m$^2$, with $λ/ 5$ resolution, from contact with the surface of the nanofiber to a few micrometers away. Comparison between experiments and Mie scattering theory allows…
Terahertz subwavelength imaging aims at developing THz microscopes able to resolve deeply subwavelength features. To improve the spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit, a current trend is to use various subwavelength probes to convert the near-field to the far-field. These techniques, while offering significant gains in spatial resolution, inherently lack the ability to rapidly obtain THz images due to the necessity of slow pixel-by-pixel raster scan and often suffer from low light throughput. In parallel, in the visible spectral range, several super-resolution imaging techniques were…
This is the second article in a series of two dealing with the concept of "resonant metalens" we introduced recently [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 203901 (2010)]. It is a new type of lens capable of coding in time and radiating efficiently in the far field region sub-diffraction information of an object. A proof of concept of such a lens is performed in the microwave range, using a medium made out of a square lattice of parallel conducting wires with finite length. We investigate a sub-wavelength focusing scheme with time reversal and demonstrate experimentally spots with focal widths of λ/25. Throug…
Pixel size in cameras and other refractive imaging devices is typically limited by the free-space diffraction. However, a vast majority of semiconductor-based detectors are based on materials with substantially high refractive index. We demonstrate that diffractive optics can be used to take advantage of this high refractive index to reduce effective pixel size of the sensors below free-space diffraction limit. At the same time, diffractive systems encode both amplitude and phase information about the incoming beam into multiple pixels, offering the platform for noise-tolerant imaging with dyn…
Inspired by the capability of structured illumination microscopy in subwavelength imaging, many researchers devoted themselves to investigating this methodology. However, due to the free propagating feature of the traditional structured illumination fields, the resolution can be only improved up to double times compared with the diffractied limited microscopy. Besides, most of the previous studies, relying on incoherent illumination sources, are restricted to fluorescent samples. In this work, a subwavelength nonfluorescent imaging method is proposed based on the terahertz traveling wave and p…
We propose and numerically demonstrate a technique for subwavelength imaging based on a metal-dielectric multilayer hyperlens designed in such a way that only the large-wavevector waves are transmitted while all propagating waves from the image area are blocked by the hyperlens. As a result, the image plane only contains scattered light from subwavelength features of the objects and is free from background illumination. Similar in spirit to conventional dark-field microscopy, the proposed dark-field hyperlens is promising for optical imaging of weakly scattering subwavelength objects, such as …
Spatial resolution of most imaging devices is fundamentally restricted by diffraction. This limitation is manifested in the loss of high spatial frequency information contained in evanescent waves. As a result, conventional far-field optics yields no information about an object's subwavelength features. Here we propose a novel approach to recovering evanescent waves in the far field, thereby enabling subwavelength-resolved imaging and spatial spectroscopy. Our approach relies on shifting the frequency and the wave vector of near-field components via scattering on acoustic phonons. This process…
Subwavelength Imaging using a Solid-Immersion Diffractive Optical Processor
Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen)（哈尔滨工业大学（深圳））；University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)（加州纳米系统研究所）；Peking University（北京大学）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）；David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校大卫·格芬医学院）
Diffraction limit is manifested in the loss of high spatial frequency information that results from decay of evanescent waves. As a result, conventional far-field optics yields no information about an object's subwavelength features. Here we propose a novel approach to recovering evanescent waves in the far field, thereby enabling subwavelength-resolved imaging and spatial spectroscopy. Our approach relies on shifting the frequency and the wave vector of near-field components via scattering on acoustic phonons. This process effectively removes the spatial frequency cut-off for unambiguous far …
Deep-Subwavelength Plasmon Polariton Atomic Cavity Detector for Frequency- and Polarization-Sensitive Terahertz Detection and Imaging
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies（光电信息材料与技术国家重点实验室）；Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology（广东省显示材料与技术重点实验室）；School of Electronics and Information Technology（电子与信息学院）；Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学）
Reactive near-field subwavelength microwave imaging with a non-invasive Rydberg probe
State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics Technologies and Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy（量子光学技术与器件国家重点实验室激光光谱研究所）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University（极端光学协同创新中心山西大学）
Near-field imaging with terahertz (THz) waves is emerging as a powerful technique for fundamental research in photonics and across physical and life sciences. Spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit can be achieved by collecting THz waves from an object through a small aperture placed in the near-field. However, light transmission through a sub-wavelength size aperture is fundamentally limited by the wave nature of light. Here, we conceive a novel architecture that exploits inherently strong evanescent THz field arising within the aperture to mitigate the problem of vanishing transmiss…
A planar near-field magnetoinductive lens operating in the microwave range is presented. The proposed device consists of two parallel planar arrays of metallic broadside coupled (BC-) split ring resonators (SRRs), or BC-SRRs. Power coming from a point-like source located in front of the lens is focused into a receiver located in free space behind the device. This focus is clearly removed from the back side of the lens, and has a size which is an order of magnitude smaller than the free space wavelength of the incoming radiation. The imaging properties of the device mainly relies on the excitat…
End-to-end deep learning for superoscillatory subtraction imaging
College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University（中国计量大学光学与电子科技学院）；Centre for THz Research, China Jiliang University（中国计量大学太赫兹研究中心）
Fourier ptychography (FP) is a promising computational imaging technique that overcomes the physical space-bandwidth product (SBP) limit of a conventional microscope by applying angular diversity illuminations. However, to date, the effective imaging numerical aperture (NA) achievable with a commercial LED board is still limited to the range of 0.3 to 0.7 with a 4X0.1 NA objective due to the constraint of planar geometry with weak illumination brightness and attenuated signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Thus the highest achievable half-pitch resolution is usually constrained between 500 to 1000 nm, …
Modern scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) has become an indispensable tool in material research. However, as the s-SNOM technique marches into the far-infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) regimes, emerging experiments sometimes produce puzzling results. For example, anomalies in the near-field optical contrast have been widely reported. In this Letter, we systematically investigate a series of extreme subwavelength metallic nanostructures via s-SNOM near-field imaging in the GHz to THz frequency range. We find that the near-field material contrast is greatly impacted …
We investigate in this paper the imaging properties of an absorptive left-handed material (LHM) slab. For a line source, a geometric explanation to the reason of the thickness limitation on an ideal slab is given. For a lossy slab, the imaging properties are determined by the wavelength, the slab thickness, the distance from the source to the nearer boundary of the slab, and the absorption effect. Varying the ratios between these quantities, the image width can be changed from wavelength to subwavelength scale. In the former situation, the energy density is mainly concentrated at the two image…
A new principle of subwavelength imaging based on frequency scanning is considered. It is shown that it is possible to reconstruct the spatial profile of an external field exciting an array (or coupled arrays) of subwavelength-sized resonant particles with a frequency scan over the whole band of resonating array modes. During the scan it is enough to measure and store the values of the near field at one or at most two points. After the scan the distribution of the near field can be reconstructed with simple post-processing. The proposed near-field microscope has no moving parts.
Spatial frequency filtering is a fundamental enabler of information processing methods in biological and technical imaging. Most filtering methods, however, require either bulky and expensive optical equipment or some degree of computational processing. Here we experimentally demonstrate on-chip, all-optical spatial frequency filtering using a thin-film perfect absorber structure. We give examples of edge enhancement in an amplitude image as well as conversion of a phase gradient in a wave field into an intensity modulation.
Terahertz spectral range (frequencies of 0.1-1 THz) has recently emerged as the next frontier for non-destructive imaging, industrial sensing and ultra-fast wireless communications. Here, we review several classes of materials such as simple metals, semiconductors, high-k dielectrics, polar materials, zero gap materials, as well as structured materials that can support strongly localised electromagnetic modes at material interfaces in the Terahertz spectral range. We present the basic theory of surface waves, detail the requirement of strong modal confinement and low loss for the surface waves…
Recently it has been proposed that a planar slab of material, for which both the permittivity and permeability have the values of -1, could bring not only the propagating fields associated with a source to a focus, but could also refocus the nonpropagating near-fields, thereby achieving a subdiffraction image. In this work we discuss the sensitivity of the subwavelength focus to various slab parameters, pointing out the connection to slab plasmon modes. We also note and resolve a paradox associated with the perfect imaging of a point source. We conclude that subwavelength resolution is achieva…
The concepts of spoof surface plasmon polaritons and adiabatic field compression are employed to design metallic near-field probes that allow guiding and focusing of mid-infrared wavelength electromagnetic radiation and provides subwavelength field confinements and a lateral optical resolution of about 10 nm.
Lenses that can collect the perfect image of an object must restore propagative and evanescent waves. However, for efficient information transfer, e.g., in compressed sensing, it is often desirable to detect only the fast spatial variations of the wave field (carried by evanescent waves), as the one created by edges or small details. Image processing edge detection algorithms perform such operation but they add time and complexity to the imaging process. Here, we present a new subwavelength approach that generates an image of only those components of the acoustic field that are equal to or sma…
We propose a method to reconstruct the optical properties of a scattering medium with subwavelength resolution. The method is based on the solution to the inverse scattering problem with photoactivated internal sources. Numerical simulations of three-dimensional structures demonstrate that a resolution of approximately $λ/25$ is achievable.
Superscattering, i.e., a phenomenon of the scattering cross section from a subwavelength object exceeding the single-channel limit, has important prospects in enhanced sensing/spectroscopy, solar cells, and biomedical imaging. Superscattering can be typically constructed only at a single frequency regime, and depends critically on the inescapable material losses. Under such realistic conditions, superscattering has not been predicted nor observed to exist simultaneously at multiple frequency regimes. Here we introduce multifrequency superscattering in a subwavelength hyperbolic structure, whic…
We consider the problem of subwavelength imaging via a slab of a left handed media (LHM) in the presence of material losses. We derive the expression for the resolution limit of LHM-based lens and demonstrate that the area of its subwavelength performance is usually limited to the near-field zone.
In this Letter, we theoretically propose for the first time that graphene monolayers can be used for superscatterer designs. We show that the scattering cross section of the bare deep-subwavelength dielectric cylinder is markedly enhanced by six orders of magnitude due to the excitation of the first-order resonance of graphene plamons. By utilizing the tunability of the plasmonic resonance through tuning graphene's chemical potential, the graphene superscatterer works in a wide range of frequencies from several terahertz to tens of terahertz.
Superscattering, induced by degenerate resonances, breaks the fundamental single-channel limit of scattering cross section of subwavelength structures; in principle, an arbitrarily large total cross section can be achieved via superscattering. It thus provides a unique way to strengthen the light-matter interaction at the subwavelength scale, and has many potential applications in sensing, energy harvesting, bio-imaging (such as magnetic resonance imaging), communication and optoelectronics. However, the experimental demonstration of superscattering remains an open challenge due to its vulnera…
