'Apodized superresolution' - concept and simulations

A new generalized method for designing continuous amplitude-only pupil filters for transverse superresolution using a nonlinear programming method is presented. We emphasise the principal advantage of amplitude-only filters over their phase counterparts, that the side lobe intensities can be highly reduced along with the spot size. A quantitative comparison with continuous phase-only filters as well as the two-zone binary phase filter is given with respect to spot size and ratio of side lobe to central peak intensity.