Effect of phase-only pupil on lateral resolution property of the defocused confocal microscopy system

The variation of the resolution property of a defocused confocal microscopy system(CMS) is analyzed and the defocused state is considered as the main factor of influence on CMS lateral resolution property. In order to diminish this effect, superresolution pupil filtering technique using a phase-only pupil filter is proposed to improve the lateral resolution property of CMS under the defocused state, and the effect of pupil's position on CMS lateral resolution is analyzed. Experiments and analyses indicate that the phase-only pupil filter technique used obviously suppresses the increasing of side-lobe of Airy spot and prevents the decreasing of CMS lateral resolution caused by the defocused state, and reaches the superresolution in the lateral direction.