COHERENCE CONFOCAL-IMAGING SYSTEM FOR ENHANCED DEPTH DISCRIMINATION IN TRANSMITTED LIGHT

A system for image-plane holography that uses a spectrally and spatial ly broad radiation source is analyzed and shown to provide depth discr imination in excess of that offered by conventional confocal imaging. The enhanced depth discrimination is a consequence of two factors: the simultaneous reduction of both the spatial and the temporal coherence of the source, and the special property of certain grating interferom eters of presenting a spectrally dispersed light beam to the object wh ile forming achromatic fringes at the hologram-recording plane. (C) 19 96 Optical Society of America