  Ptychography is a powerful computational imaging technique that transforms a
collection of low-resolution images into a high-resolution sample
reconstruction. Unfortunately, algorithms that are currently used to solve this
reconstruction problem lack stability, robustness, and theoretical guarantees.
Recently, convex optimization algorithms have improved the accuracy and
reliability of several related reconstruction efforts. This paper proposes a
convex formulation of the ptychography problem. This formulation has no local
minima, it can be solved using a wide range of algorithms, it can incorporate
appropriate noise models, and it can include multiple a priori constraints. The
paper considers a specific algorithm, based on low-rank factorization, whose
runtime and memory usage are near-linear in the size of the output image.
Experiments demonstrate that this approach offers a 25% lower background
variance on average than alternating projections, the current standard
algorithm for ptychographic reconstruction.
