Coherent Four-Fold Super-Resolution Imaging with Composite Photonic–Plasmonic Structured Illumination

We present a far-field super-resolution imaging scheme based on coherent scattering under a composite photonic–plasmonic structured illumination. The super-resolved image retrieval method, which involves the combination of 13 different diffraction-limited images of the specimen, is first developed within a Fourier optics framework. A feasible implementation of this optical microscopy technique working at 465 nm is proposed and its point spread function is investigated using full electromagnetics calculations. The 4-fold super-resolution power of the scheme, able to resolve 60 nm feature sizes at the operating wavelength, is demonstrated against both Abbe’s (imaging a single object) and Rayleigh’s (imaging two closely spaced objects) criteria.