A camera has an ƒ/1.4 lens, meaning the ratio of focal length to lens diameter is 1.4. Find the smallest spot diameter (i.e., the diameter of the first diffraction minimum) to which this lens can focus parallel light with 580-nm wavelength.
A camera has an ƒ/1.4 lens, meaning the ratio of focal length to lens diameter is 1.4. Find the smallest spot diameter (i.e., the diameter of the first diffraction minimum) to which this lens can focus parallel light with 580-nm wavelength.
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Concept and Principle:
- When imaging small or distant objects there is a theoretical limit on the maximum resolving power of the optical instrument. This limit is called the diffraction limit.
- Once the limit is crossed the instrument will now be able to resolve small details in the image properly.
- The diffraction limit is given by,
Here θmin is the minimum angular size that can be resolved, λ is the wavelength and D is the diameter of the aperture.
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