Bessel annular apodizers: imaging characteristics

Apodizers with relatively high transmittance over an annular region of the exit pupil can reduce the sensitivity to defocusing and to spherical aberration [ Opt. Lett.11, 487 ( 1986)]. Here, we analyze the imaging properties (pupil functions, point spread functions, optical transfer functions, and Strehl ratios) of the Bessel type of annular apodizers. We also show some computer-simulated images, obtained with and without this kind of annular apodizer.