Patent ID: 8681413

Claim:
An optical system, comprising: an objective; a source of illumination; an illumination system having illumination optics configured to direct the illumination onto the objective; and at least two dynamic optical array devices located at a pupil conjugate plane and a field conjugate plane, respectively in the illumination system, wherein the dynamic optical array devices are configured to control one or more properties of the illumination coupled from the illumination system to the objective, and wherein the dynamic optical array devices include arrays of dynamic optical devices that are configured to adjust an optical property of the illumination at the pupil conjugate plane or field conjugate plane on a per-pixel basis, and include arrays of polarization rotating devices configured to rotate polarization of illumination to a desired orientation on a per-pixel basis, or arrays of spectral filtering devices configured to selectively reflect or transmit particular ranges of electromagnetic frequency of illumination on a per-pixel basis, or wherein the source of illumination includes polarization control elements configured to select a polarization state of electromagnetic radiation as a function of wavelength of the illumination.