Perfect imaging with planar interfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive theoretical framework for planar sheets that can perform perfect one-to-one imaging, extending previous results and suggesting practical implementations with lenslet arrays.

Contribution

It generalizes the concept of planar imaging sheets, providing a broad theoretical description and linking it to feasible optical devices like lenslet arrays.

Findings

Defines the most general homogeneous planar imaging sheet

Establishes a connection to generalized confocal lenslet arrays

Extends previous specific cases to a broader theoretical framework

Abstract

We describe the most general homogenous, planar, light-ray-direction-changing sheet that performs one-to-one imaging between object space and image space. This is a non-trivial special case (of the sheet being homogenous) of an earlier result [J. Courtial, Opt. Commun.282, 2480 (2009)]. Such a sheet can be realised, approximately, with generalised confocal lenslet arrays.