Resolving power

Diffraction of light through a rectangular aperture is a rather straightforward extension of 1-dimensional

diffraction from a slit, as shown in the diagrams below.

A circular aperture is qualitatively similar, but an accurate

quantitative treatment of the pattern requires more complicated mathematics. The intensity pattern is
called the "Airy Disk". The main features are shown in the diagram below. The first minimum occurs at
an angle θ = 1.22 λ/D, where D is the diameter of the aperture. On a screen a distance L >> D from the
aperture the minimum is seen at a radial distance r' = 1.22 λL/D from the center of the pattern
Producing a laser beam is an attempt to confine the light in the directions transverse to the direction of
propagation. The light will spread out in the same way it does after passing through an aperture.

Assume that at z = 0 the diameter of a laser beam is restricted to a(0). The angle through which the light
spreads is approximately θ ≈ λ/a(0). (For back-of-the-envelope calculations we often ignore the factor of
1.22.) Because the laser beam diameter is typically much larger the wavelength of light, or a(0) >> λ, θ is
quite small. At a large distance z the diameter of the beam will have increased to a(z) ≈ z*2θ. Consider
a HeNe laser, for which λ = 633 nm with a beam waist of ~ 0.6 mm. Then θ ~ 10-3 rad = 1 millirad. The
beam must propagate ~ 3 m before the diameter increases by a factor of 10.

In geometrical optics we
assume that an ideal, aberration-free lens focuses parallel rays to a single point one focal length away
from the lens. But the lens itself acts like an aperture with diameter D for the incident light. The light
passing through the lens therefore spread out. This yields a blurred spot at the focal point. Light near
the focal point exhibits an Airy Disc pattern. The size of the Airy Disc is determined by the focal length f
and diameter D of the lens. The radius r of the Airy Disc at the focal point of a lens is given by r = 1.22
λf/D.

If all ray aberrations in an optical system can be eliminated, such that all of the rays leaving a given
object point land inside of the Airy Disc associated with the corresponding image point, then we have a
diffraction-limited optical system. This is the absolute best we can do for an optical system that has
lenses with finite diameters.

The resolving power of an optical instrument is its ability to separate the images of two objects, which
are close together. Some binary stars in the sky look like one single star when viewed with the naked
eye, but the images of the two stars are clearly resolved when viewed with a telescope.

Why?
The merging of the images in the eye is caused by diffraction.

If you look at a far-away object, then the image of the object will form a diffraction pattern on your
retina. For two far-away objects, separated by a small angle θ, the diffraction patterns will overlap. You
are able to resolve the two objects as long as the central maxima of the two diffraction patterns do not
overlap. The two images are just resolved when one central maximum falls onto the first minimum of
the other diffraction pattern. This is known as the Rayleigh criterion. If the two central maxima overlap
the two objects look like one.

The width of the central maximum in a diffraction pattern depends on the size of the aperture, (i.e. the
size of the slit). The aperture of your eye is your pupil. A telescope has a much larger aperture, and
therefore has a greater resolving power. The minimum angular separation of two objects which can just
be resolved is given by θmin=1.22 λ/D, where D is the diameter of the aperture. The factor of 1.22
applies to circular apertures like the pupil of your eye or the apertures in telescopes and cameras.

The closer you are to two objects, the greater is the angular separation between them. Up close, two
objects are easily resolved. As your distance from the objects increases, their images become less well
resolved and eventually merge into one image.

Problem:

A spy satellite travels at a distance of 50 km above Earth's surface. How large must the lens be so that it
can resolve objects with a size of 2 mm and thus read a newspaper? Assume the light has a wavelength
of 400 nm.

Solution:
Diffraction limits the resolution according to θ = 1.22 λ/D = y/L. Here the height of the object to be
resolved is y and the distance to the object is L. Solving for D we find D = 12.2 m.

How to read an USAF1951 target?

USAF-1951 test charts (also called USAF-1951 test targets) get their name from the designers and the
design year: “United States Air Force 1951”. The targets are available in various finishes , for example
chrome on glass.

Here is an example of how they look enlarged (source: Wikipedia)

The targets consist of “groups” of 6 “elements” each. The group numbers at the top of the group, the
element numbers are located at the sides of the groups.

Top right, for example, you can see group “-1” with the elements 1-6.

Each element consists of three horizontal and three vertical bars.

The camera is said to “resolve” a chart element, if the horizontal and the vertical bars can still be
recognized as three distinc bars und don’t blur into one another.
When we enlarge the center of the above chart, we get:

You can see that group 1 element 5 is still resolved. Group 1 element 6 can’t be resolved (the bars blur).

How do you interpret this? Well, we need further information, namely the width of the bars.
As expected, the width of the bars is well defined: the bar of group “group” element “element” have

the widthso in our case the width is

That’s the so-called object side resolution, as obviously details of this size on the object still can be
recognized.

What is the corresponding image side resolution?

If the total width of the sensor is M times larger than the total visible width of the object area (= Field Of
View = FOV), then the image side resolution is by that factor M smaller than the object side resoluton!

Example:

If we can see a total of, say, 19,2cm = 192mm of the object horizontallywith a 1/2″ sensor of 6,4mm
width, the magnification M is M = 6,4 / 192 = 0,0333.

So the image side resolution is:

image_side_resolution = 0,0333 * object_side_resolution
which in our case is approximately 157,49um * 0,0333 = 5,244um.

Example:

If our sensor has 10um large pixels, we have found an error in our calculation! After all we can’t resolve
things smaller than a pixel.

If our sensor has 6um pixels, the resolution is approximately the size of the pixels. This is the optimum
and the lens resolution is as least as good as the sensor’s.
If our sensor has 3um large pixels, and the smallest image side resolvable details are about 5,244um,
(just below 2 pixels), it could be that the lens is limiting the resolution. Or it might not be perfectly
focused.

At first glance it might be a bit surprising that neither the focal length nor distance is part of the formula.
But they are in fact included in the calculation, as they influence the magnification. For example the
doubled distance corresponds to half the magnification.

To avoid having to use the formula again and again, here is a table (resolution in micrometer):

Resolution of the USAF1951 Target in um

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 2000,0 1000,0 500,0 250,0 125,0 62,5 31,3 15,6 7,8 3,9

2 1781,8 890,9 445,4 222,7 111,4 55,7 27,8 13,9 7,0 3,5

3 1587,4 793,7 396,9 198,4 99,2 49,6 24,8 12,4 6,2 3,1

4 1414,2 707,1 353,6 176,8 88,4 44,2 22,1 11,0 5,5 2,8

5 1259,9 630,0 315,0 157,5 78,7 39,4 19,7 9,8 4,9 2,5

6 1122,5 561,2 280,6 140,3 70,2 35,1 17,5 8,8 4,4 2,2