Smallest Focal Spot
- 2 November 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 81 (18) , 3844-3847
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.81.3844
Abstract
According to diffraction theory the size of a focused spot is determined by wavelength, numerical aperture, and aperture shape. But even when these parameters are fixed it is possible to achieve super-resolution and reduce the spot size even further. It is shown, however, that the three-dimensional spot size cannot be arbitrarily reduced. The minimum focal spot able to probe high-resolution volumetric information in an optical system is about half of the diffraction-limited spot size.Keywords
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