We report a new synthetic aperture optical microscopy in which high-resolution, wide-field amplitude and phase images are synthesized from a set of Fourier holograms. Each hologram records a region of the complex two-dimensional spatial frequency spectrum of an object, determined by the illumination field’s spatial and spectral properties and the collection angle and solid angle. We demonstrate synthetic microscopic imaging in which spatial frequencies that are well outside the modulation transfer function of the collection optical system are recorded while maintaining the long working distance and wide field of view.

• Received 6 April 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.168102