Demonstration of Abbe's Theory of Image Formation

“No microscope permits components to be seen separately if these are so close to each other that even the first light bundle created by diffraction can no longer enter the objective simultaneously with the non-diffracted light cone.” Ernst Abbe, 1873.

Within VirtualLab Fusion, we build up an imaging system, use chromium gratings as test objects, and demonstrate the theory of Ernst Abbe. On one hand, we change the grating period; on the other hand, we (keep the period) change the aperture at the Fourier plane, and investigate the influence on the image formation.