We study generalized dark-field imaging systems. These are a subset of linear shift-invariant optical imaging systems that exhibit arbitrary aberrations and for which normally incident plane-wave input yields zero output. We write down the theory for the forward problem of imaging coherent scalar optical fields using such arbitrarily aberrated dark-field systems and give numerical examples. The associated images may be viewed as a form of dark-field Gabor holography, utilizing arbitrary outgoing Green's functions as generalized Huygens-type wavelets, with the Young-type boundary wave forming the holographic reference.

• Received 2 October 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.053849