High numerical aperture Fourier ptychography: principle, implementation and characterization

Fourier ptychography (FP) utilizes illumination control and computational post-processing to increase the resolution of bright-field microscopes.In effect, FP extends the fixed numerical aperture (NA) of an objective lens to form a larger synthetic system NA.Here, we build an FP microscope (FPM) using a 40X 0.75NA objective lens to synthesize a system NA of 1.45.This system achieved a two-slit resolution of 335 nm at a wavelength of 632 nm.This resolution closely adheres to theoretical prediction and is comparable to the measured resolution (315 nm) associated with a standard, commercially available 1.25 NA oil immersion microscope.Our work indicates that Fourier ptychography is an attractive method to improve the resolution-versus-NA performance, increase the working distance, and enlarge the field-of-view of high-resolution brightfield microscopes by employing lower NA objectives.