Fourier transforming property of lenses

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04/13/09 wk10-a- 6
 Fourier transform by far field propagation or lens

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04/13/09 wk10-a- 7
 Spherical-plane wave duality

The two pictures above are interpretations of the same physical phenomenon.
On the left, the transparency is interpreted in the Huygens sense as a superposition of “spherical wavelets.”
Each spherical wavelet is collimated by the lens and contributes to the output a plane wave, propagating at the
appropriate angle (scaled by f.)
On the right, the transparency is interpreted in the Fourier sense as a superposition of plane waves (“angular” or
“spatial frequencies.”) Each plane wave is transformed to a converging spherical wave by the lens and contributes
to the output, f to the right of the lens, a point image that carries all the energy that departed from the input at the
corresponding spatial frequency.

MIT 2.71/2.710
04/13/09 wk10-a- 8
 Fourier transforming by lenses

lens lens
f f
f f

lens lens
f f
f f

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04/13/09 wk10-a- 9
 Imaging: the 4F system
The 4F system (telescope with finite conjugates
one focal distance to the left of the objective and
one focal distance to the right of the collector,
respectively) consists of a cascade of two Fourier
transforms

collector lens
f
f
image
objective lens plane
f
f

plane wave Fourier

illumination
plane
(pupil plane)
thin
transparency
MIT 2.71/2.710
04/13/09 wk10-a-10
 Spatial filtering: the 4F system
Spatial frequencies which have the misfortune of

hitting the opaque portions of the pupil plane

transparency vanish from the output. Of course the

transparency may be gray scale (partial block) or a

phase mask; the latter would introduce

relative phase delay between

spatial frequencies. collector lens

f
f
block image
pass plane
objective lens
f
f

plane wave Fourier

illumination
plane
(pupil plane)
thin transparency
transparency
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04/13/09 wk10-a- 11
 Imaging and spatial filtering: physical justification

input transparency: image

decomposed into g plane
Huygens wavelets divergin con
a l v
spheric sph ergin
wave er g
wa ical
collimate (foc ve
d usi
ng)

plane
wave
illumination

objective

collector
conv Fourier (pupil) image
input transparency: erg plane
decomposed into sphe ing diverging
plane
rica
spatial frequencies wave l spherical collimate
wave (focu
plane order) sing) wave d
ction
(diffra

plane diffraction order

wave comes to focus
illumination

MIT 2.71/2.710
04/13/09 wk10-a-12
 Today

• Spatial filtering in the 4F system

• The Point-Spread Function (PSF)
and Amplitude Transfer Function (ATF)

next Wednesday
• Lateral and angular magnification
• The Numerical Aperture (NA) revisited
• Sampling the space and frequency domains, and
the Space-Bandwidth Product (SBP)
• Pupil engineering

MIT 2.71/2.710
04/15/09 wk10-b- 1
 Spatial filtering by a telescope (4F system)

or
iv

ct
Fourier (pupil)

ct
image

lle
input transparency:

je
diffrac

co
plane

ob
sinusoidal amplitude t tion o replicates the object
+1s focus r d e rs
grating ing collimate
0th d

−1 st
plane
wave
illumination diffraction orders
focused

pupil blocked spatial frequencies

input transparency: diffrac
tion o mask are missing from the image
sinusoidal amplitude t
grating
+1s focus rders
ing
0th

−1 st
plane
wave
illumination diffraction orders diffraction order
blocked passing

MIT 2.71/2.710
04/15/09 wk10-b- 2
 Low-pass filtering: analysis

or
iv

ct
pupil

ct
blocked spatial frequencies

lle
input transparency:

je
diffrac

co
mask

ob
sinusoidal amplitude t tion o are missing from the image
grating
+1s focus rders
ing
0th

−1 st
plane
wave
illumination diffraction orders diffraction order
blocked passing

field after input transparency

field before pupil mask

blocked by the pupil filter

field after pupil mask

field at output

(image plane)

MIT 2.71/2.710
04/15/09 wk10-b- 3