二次元ロックインアンプによる顕微鏡画像の深さ方向分解能の改善

抄録

We have developed two-dimensional lock-in amplifier systems that can detect very small changes in the light intensity distributions of images. In optical microscope systems, the resolution is lower in the depth direction than in the focal plane, thus it is important to improve the depth resolution for high-resolution, three-dimensitnal imaging. In this paper, we present a new technique to improve the depth resolution by implementing the lock-in amplifier technology. In this technique, the derivatives of the image intensity in the depth direction are obtained using the lock-in amplifier system. Using these derivatives, the depth resolution can be improved by a factor of 3.5. We believe that this system has many important applications in the two-dimensional measurement of optical information.