Multiscale Aperture Synthesis Imager

Summary

Principle of MASI and computational synchronizationFigure 1 illustrates the operating principle and implementation of MASI. In Fig. 1a, we demonstrate how MASI surpasses the diffraction limit of a single sensor by coherently fusing wavefields in real space, without requiring reference waves or overlapping measurement regions between receivers. The process begins with capturing raw intensity patterns using an array of coded sensors positioned at different diffraction planes. Each sensor incorporates a pre-calibrated coded surface that enables robust recovery of complex wavefield information via ptychographic reconstruction. After recovering the wavefields, we computationally pad them and propagate them to the object plane in real space for alignment and synthesis.Fig. 1: Operating principle and implementation of MASI.a Resolution enhancement with MASI. Lensless diffraction patterns of a point source are captured by nine coded sensors (first column). These images are processed to recover the complex wavefields (second column), which are then padded and propagated to the object plane (third column). Through computational phase synchronization (fourth column), MASI synchronizes wavefields from different sensors by optimizing their relative phase offsets to maximize energy in the reconstructed object, without requiring any overlapping measurement regions between individual sensors. In the rightmost panel, the nine color blocks in the bottom right inset represent the recovered phase offsets of individual sensors, where the phase values are coded with color hues. b Field of view expansion with MASI. As the padded wavefields are propagated from the coded surface plane to the object plane, diffraction naturally expands the field of view beyond individual sensor dimensions, enabling reconstruction despite physical gaps between sensors. c MASI prototype with a compact array of coded sensors. The insets show the coded image sensor and its integration with a customized ribbon fl...