Patent ID: 7978343

Claim:
An apparatus for imaging an object characterized by a surface, the apparatus comprising: a. a light source for illuminating the object with an illuminating electromagnetic wave via an illumination path; b. a detector for detecting electromagnetic waves scattered by the object via a collection path, and for generating a detector signal, c. an aperture, disposed within at least one of the illuminating path and the collection path, wherein the aperture is characterized by a dimension equal to, or smaller than, a characteristic wavelenth of the illuminating electromagnetic wave; d. a scanner for scanning a relative position of the aperture with respect to the object to a plurality of relative positions, not all of which relative positions are coplanar, above the surface of the object; and e. a controller adapted i. to apply a forward model of a point scatterer in a manner as to derive a three dimensional scattering model; ii. to receive the detector signal and generate a detected data function; and iii. to invert the detected data function in terms of the forward model to obtain a three-dimensional reconstruction of the object.