https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2019-12886-4
Technical Report
Infrared image blurring with distance beyond an initial aperture plane
Allwave Corporation, 3860 Del Amo Boulevard, Suite 404, 90503, Torrance, CA, USA
* e-mail: jan.grzesik@hotmail.com
Received:
24
March
2019
Accepted:
12
July
2019
Published online:
17
October
2019
A photon field, be it in the visible or the infrared, necessarily diverges with distance away from its source. In the domain of visible optics such divergence is routinely countered through the intervention of focusing lenses or mirrors. Such focusing, on the other hand, is less readily available in the infrared, and it becomes of some interest to acquire an intuitive, semi-quantitative feel for the image blurring which this divergence implies. The present short note, whose content, admittedly, is both highly idealized and is aimed at a merely methodological goal, seeks to provide just such an image blurring insight. It considers as its datum a circular aperture with an isotropic radiant flux incident upon it, and then tracks image spreading and the concomitant intensity decline across downstream capture planes. The anticipated blurring so confirmed should encourage similar, more incisive analyses in realistic imaging scenarios. And, while the language below exudes an aura of urgency in a specifically infrared domain, its concern implicitly extends to photonic fields at all other frenquencies.
© The Author(s), 2019
