Fig. 4. Simulations of COIL imaging with a high core count photonic lantern.

Simulated reconstruction results (511 × 511 pixels) obtained using N_p = 2000 intensity patterns generated from random orthonormal superpositions of the 2000 lowest-order modes of a circular ideal-mirror waveguide. The objects were the 1951 USAF resolution target and a confocal microscope image of fixed calcein stained adenocarcinomic human alveolar basal epithelial (A549) cells. For each object, the reconstructed image with additive Gaussian noise (input signal-to-noise ratio iSNR = 50) is shown alongside that with no added noise. We highlight the fact that there is deliberately no spatial scale for the reconstructions, since the size of a waveguide supporting N_p = 2000 modes varies depending on its core-cladding refractive index contrast. The reader is referred to the discussion section for more information. We thank Eckhardt Optics for allowing us to use their image of the USAF 1951 resolution test chart presented in the top left.