Fresnel diffractive imaging: Experimental study of coherence and curvature

A Fresnel coherent diffractive imaging experiment is performed using a pinhole as a test object. The experimental parameters of the beam curvature and coherence length of the illuminating radiation are varied to investigate their effects on the reconstruction process. It is found that a sufficient amount of curvature across the sample strongly ameliorates the effects of low coherence, even when the sample size exceeds the coherence length.