Ein Experiment zur Überschreitung der Abbeschen Auflösungsgrenze

It is possible to overcome the Abbe limit of resolution by a factor two. For this one needs the A PRIORI knowledge, that the object is not birefringent or dichroic. That is to say, the object acts identically on both of the independant polarization components of the incident light. Then already one polarization component would be enough to form an image as complete as it is permitted by the lens system and by the aperture. The other polarization component would produce an identical image. Hence the capacity of the other polarization component to carry information from the object plane to the image plane is vasted. This vaste can be avoided by means of a special set up, containing e.g. twoWollaston prism. The result is the doubling in resolution without any increase of the aperture. This has been confirmed experimentally both for coherent and incoherent illumination.