Journal
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
Volume 112, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/1.5011067
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [61475073, 61673287]
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20150020]
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Microsphere-assisted imaging is an extraordinary simple technology that can obtain optical superresolution under white-light illumination. Here, we introduce a method to improve the resolution of a microsphere lens by increasing its numerical aperture. In our proposed structure, BaTiO3 glass (BTG) microsphere lenses are semi-immersed in a S1805 layer with a refractive index of 1.65, and then, the semi-immersed microspheres are fully embedded in an elastomer with an index of 1.4. We experimentally demonstrate that this structure, in combination with a conventional optical microscope, can clearly resolve a two-dimensional 200-nm-diameter hexagonally close-packed (hcp) silica microsphere array. On the contrary, the widely used structure where BTG microsphere lenses are fully immersed in a liquid or elastomer cannot even resolve a 250-nm-diameter hcp silica microsphere array. The improvement in resolution through the proposed structure is due to an increase in the effective numerical aperture by semi-immersing BTG microsphere lenses in a high-refractive-index S1805 layer. Our results will inform on the design of microsphere-based high-resolution imaging systems. Published by AIP Publishing.
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