Optimization of wavefront-coded infinity-corrected microscope systems with extended depth of field.

The depth of field of an infinity-corrected microscope system is greatly extended by simply applying a specially designed phase mask between the objective and the tube lens. In comparison with the method of modifying the structure of objective, it is more cost effective and provides improved flexibility for assembling the system. Instead of using an ideal optical system for simulation which was the focus of the previous research, a practical wavefront-coded infinity-corrected microscope system is designed in this paper by considering the various aberrations. Two new optimization methods, based on the commercial optical design software, are proposed to design a wavefront-coded microscope using a non-symmetric phase mask and a symmetric phase mask, respectively. We use polynomial phase mask and rational phase mask as examples of the non-symmetric and symmetric phase masks respectively. Simulation results show that both optimization methods work well for a 32 × infinity-corrected microscope system with 0.6 numerical aperture. The depth of field is extended to about 13 times of the traditional one.