The European Physical Journal Plus

Optical resolution from Fisher information

L. Motka, B. Stoklasa, Milena D’Angelo, Paolo Facchi A, Augusto Garuccio, Z. Hradil, Saverio Pascazio, Francesco Vincenzo Pepe, Yong Siah Teo, Jaroslav Řeháček, Luis Lorenzo Sánchez-Soto

Published Apr 30, 2016• 27 citations

Publisher

Abstract

The information gained by performing a measurement on a physical system is most appropriately assessed by the Fisher information, which in fact establishes lower bounds on estimation errors for an arbitrary unbiased estimator. We revisit the basic properties of the Fisher information and demonstrate its potential to quantify the resolution of optical systems. We illustrate this with some conceptually important examples, such as single-slit diffraction, spectroscopy and superresolution techniques.

DOI: 10.1140/epjp/i2016-16130-7

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