Enhanced superlens imaging with loss-compensating hyperbolic near-field spatial filter

Recently a coherent optical process called plasmon-injection (Pi) scheme, which employs an auxiliary source, has been introduced as a new technique to compensate losses in metamaterials. Here, a physical implementation of the Pi scheme is proposed for enhanced superlens imaging in the presence of absorption losses and noise. The auxiliary source is constructed by a high-intensity illumination (above 1 mW/mu m(2)) of the superlens integrated with a near-field spatial filter. The integrated system enables reconstruction of an object previously unresolvable with the superlens alone. This work elevates the viability of the Pi scheme as a strong candidate for loss compensation in near-field imaging systems without requiring nonlinear effects or gain media. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America