Single-shot super-resolution imaging via discernibility in the high-dimensional light-field space based on ghost imaging

Super-resolution (SR) imaging has been widely used in several fields like remote sensing and microscopy. However, it is challenging for existing SR approaches to capture SR images in a single shot, especially in dynamic imaging scenarios. In this study, we present a single-shot SR imaging scheme that leverages discernibility in the high-dimensional (H-D) light-field space based on a ghost imaging camera via sparsity constraints (GISC camera), which is capable of encoding H-D imaging information into a two-dimensional speckle pattern detected in a single shot. We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that while the resolution in the H-D light-field space, characterized by the second-order light-field correlation, remains limited by light-field diffraction, the single-shot spatial resolution is greatly improved beyond classical Rayleigh’s criterion by utilizing the discernibility in the H-D light-field space. We further quantify the effects of the sampling number, signal-to-noise ratio, and object sparsity on the resolution. Our results offer significant potential for the SR observation of high-speed dynamic processes.