Analysis of heterodyne and confocal microscopy for illumination with broad-bandwidth light

Abstract An imaging equation is derived which describes heterodyne microscopy with broad-band light illumination. The impact of spherical aberration resulting from imaging into thick samples is investigated. As in confocal microscopy, the lateral resolution is found to be only weakly affected by moderate spherical aberration. The loss in depth resolution can be strongly reduced by using broad-band light with a short coherence length.

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