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In optics, the numerical aperture (NA) of an optical system is a dimensionless number that characterizes the range of angles over which the system can accept or emit light. By incorporating index of refraction in its definition, NA has the property that it is constant for a beam as it goes from one material to another, provided there is no ...
Memorial in Jena, Germany to Ernst Karl Abbe, who approximated the diffraction limit of a microscope as = , where d is the resolvable feature size, λ is the wavelength of light, n is the index of refraction of the medium being imaged in, and θ (depicted as α in the inscription) is the half-angle subtended by the optical objective lens (representing the numerical aperture).
Optical units are dimensionless units of length used in optical microscopy. They are used to express distances in terms of the numerical aperture of the system and the wavelength of the light used for observation. Using these units allows comparison of the properties of different microscopes. [1]
An example of the use of f-numbers in photography is the sunny 16 rule: an approximately correct exposure will be obtained on a sunny day by using an aperture of f /16 and the shutter speed closest to the reciprocal of the ISO speed of the film; for example, using ISO 200 film, an aperture of f /16 and a shutter speed of 1 ⁄ 200 second. The f ...
All optical microscopes are diffraction-limited because of the wave nature of light. Current research focuses on techniques to go beyond this limit known as the Rayleigh criterion . The use of SIL can achieve spatial resolution better than the diffraction limit in air, for both far-field imaging [ 3 ] [ 4 ] and near-field imaging.
An imaging system may have many individual components, including one or more lenses, and/or recording and display components. Each of these contributes (given suitable design, and adequate alignment) to the optical resolution of the system; the environment in which the imaging is done often is a further important factor.
The ability to resolve features in optical lithography is directly related to the numerical aperture of the imaging equipment, the numerical aperture being the sine of the maximum refraction angle multiplied by the refractive index of the medium through which the light travels. The lenses in the highest resolution "dry" photolithography ...
The numerical aperture of a Gaussian beam is defined to be NA = n sin θ, where n is the index of refraction of the medium through which the beam propagates. This means that the Rayleigh range is related to the numerical aperture by z R = n w 0 N A . {\displaystyle z_{\mathrm {R} }={\frac {nw_{0}}{\mathrm {NA} }}.}