The Rayleigh criterion is often used in practice to characterize the resolution limit of microscope or telescope systems. It is defined as follows: when the center of the diffraction pattern of one point is just overlapped with the first minimum of the diffraction pattern of another point, according to the Rayleigh criterion they can just be resolved. With VirtualLab Fusion, we investigate three real objective lenses with different values of the NA (numerical aperture) following Rayleigh’s theory, and also compare the lens performance with the ideal case predicted by the Debye-Wolf integral.
Resolution Investigation by Rayleigh Criterion
Following the Rayleigh criterion, we investigate the resolution of three microscope objective lenses with different numerical apertures.
The Debye-Wolf integral calculator in VirtualLab Fusion computes the vectorial field near focus based on an idealized model, when the exact specifications of the objective lens are not known.
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Newsletter/News rayleigh criterion, microscopy, microscope, telescope, diffraction pattern, debye wolf With VirtualLab Fusion, we investigate three real objective lenses with different values of the NA (numerical aperture) following Rayleigh’s theory, and also compare the lens performance with the ideal case predicted by the Debye-Wolf integral.
