Light Diffraction : Relativistic wave equation

Approach

Anat Alaisaee1 and Mohammed Elzain1

Department of Physics, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat 123,

Oman

Abstract. Imaging science and the pursuit to achieve high spatial reso-
lution is a frontier area in science and technology with wide applications
in scientific, civil, space, and defense applications. But the wave nature
of light and the uncertainty principle set a fundamental upper limit to
the useful resolution of all optical systems, known as the diffraction limit,
which cannot be overcome with a single measurement. Additional con-
straints also come from optical and sensor imperfections, turbulence of
the medium, photon noise, and sampling rate. The diffraction limit is
typically treated classically, yielding the familiar Rayleigh limit. We ap-
plied a computational treatment to the problem and obtained a limit
consistent with the quantum description of light based on solving the
relativistic wave equation of the photon. The quantum treatment gives
a considerably higher resolution limit than the classical treatment.

Keywords: Quantum Treatment · Relativistic wave equation · Optical

resolution · Single slit.

1 Introduction
The resolving power of optical systems plays an important role in physics and
many other science and technology disciplines. It is the ability of an optical
system (such as a telescope, microscope, an eye,...) to differentiate between two
adjacent point sources of comparable intensity as separate sources. It is expressed
as the smallest angular (or linear) separation these two points can get to each
other and still be observed. It becomes more and more difficult to separate (or
resolve) the two points as the distance between them decreases until they reach a
point where they become unresolvable. The shorter the separation that the two
points can be distinguished, the greater the resolving power and the clearer the
small details are in an image. The resolving power is an important characteristic
of an optical system as well as its light gathering power. Understanding resolving
power (resolution) and its limit are considered crucial elements in optical imaging
in view of the purpose of acquiring a clear detailed image. This limit is also
affected by multiple factors that restrict the resolution [3] such as imperfections
in the optical instruments,imperfections in the imaging sensor (CCD/CMOS),the
medium (air and atmosphere),photon noise and most importantly the resolving
power is restricted due to the diffraction of light which results from a fundamental
2 Anat Alaisaee and Mohammed Elzain

physical law of the uncertainty principle and the duality nature of light [2].
The diffraction limit was considered to be unbreakable since the late of the
19th century, when Ernest Karl Abbe formed his famous law that relates the
smallest measurable distance between two points ∆x with wavelength λ of the
λ
light (∆x = 2NA ), where NA is the numerical aperture ( NA= n sin θ), θ is
the half-angle of the cone of focused light and n is the refractive index of the
medium between the lens and the object (see Fig)

Fig. 1: A diagram shows the numerical aperture elements and the half-angle of
the cone of focused light
However, in the mid-to-late 1900s, breaking the diffraction barrier was first
illustrated by various Super-Resolution techniques started with a suggestion by
G. Toraldo di Francia that covering the aperture lenses of a microscope in a
certain way (using amplitude/phase filters) can theoretically increase the resolu-
tion and after that more successful attempts were made to reach larger resolving
power [1].
To understand the diffraction of light, quantum theory has provided us with
different approaches about the nature and the behaviour of photons, most cru-
cially, the particle diffraction and the uncertainty principle . The behaviour of a
non-relativistic quantum particle was first represented by Schrodinger’s famous
wave equation in 1926 :
ĤΨ = EΨ (1)
Where Ĥ is the Hamiltonian operator,E is the energy eigenvalue and Ψ is the
wavefunction.
Schrodinger defined the Hamiltonian using the total energy as sum of the
Kinetic (K) and the Potential (U) energies:

H =K +U (2)

This great finding had important applications and it successfully gave the correct
results for the energy levels of the Hydrogen atom [5]. The relativistic counter-
 Light Diffraction : Relativistic wave equation Approach 3

part of the wave equation namely the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equation was be
derived using the relativistic energy-momentum relation [4].
In this paper,The wavefunction ψ(⃗r, t) of the photon and the statistical in-
terpretation of the |ψ(⃗r, t)|2 obtained from the relativistic wave equation Eq.3
were used to derive the intensity inside the slit since the intesity of the diffracted
light in directly proportional to the |ψ(⃗r, t)|2 [6]:
∂ ⃗ ⃗ r, t) + V ψ(⃗
⃗ r, t)
ih̄ ψ(⃗r, t) = ch̄∇ × ψ(⃗ (3)
∂t

2 Results
In this work [6] the wave function was derived using time-dependent relativistic
wave equation in the slit where the potential is (V(x,y,z) = 0) of a width a and
a depth b as in Fig.2 and assuming an incident plane wave travels along the
z-axis, at time (t) to be:

Fig. 2: The geometry of the single-slit

eikR e−iωt 16Aj

q
4π 2 (2n+1)2 π 2 (2m+1)2 π 2 ′
ψ(r, t) = − Σj=x,y,z Σmn=0 2 e i λ2 − b 2 − a2
c
4πR π (2n + 1)(2m + 1)
r
4π 2 (2n + 1)2 π 2 (2m + 1)2 π 2 1 p
(i − − + (ik − ) cos2 (α) − sin2 (β))
λ2 b2 a2 R
Zb Za
−iksinα.x′ (2n + 1)π ′ ′ ′ (2m + 1)π) ′ ′
e sin( )x dx e−iksinβ.y sin( )y dy
b a
0 0
(4)

This summation was solved numerically by substituting the values of the

dimensions as follows: R = 4.574 m , a = b =4 × 10−4 m, c= 1.1 × 10−6 m and
4 Anat Alaisaee and Mohammed Elzain

λ = 550 × 10−9 m. An illustration of the diffraction area can be see from Fig.3
and the numerical solution is shown below.

Fig. 3: The 3D geometry of the Diffraction area

Listing 1.1: The numerical solution of the wavefunction

\%
clear , clc , c l f ;
nm=10ˆ −9;
lambda =500∗nm ; k=2∗ p i / lambda ;
a =4∗10ˆ −4; b =4∗10ˆ −4; c = 1 . 1 ∗ 1 0 ˆ − 6 ;R= 4 . 5 7 4 ;

b e t a =0;
i =s q r t ( − 1 ) ;
f 1=@( s , q , d ) ( exp (− i ∗ ( s+q ) . ∗ d ) − 1 ) . / ( s+q ) ;
E1=@(m, n ) s q r t ( 4 ∗ p i ˆ 2 / lambda ˆ2 −(2∗ n + 1 ) . ˆ 2 ∗ p i ˆ 2 / b ˆ2 −(2∗m+ 1 ) . ˆ 2 ∗ p i ˆ 2 / a ˆ 2 ) ;
T1=@(m, n ) exp ( i ∗E1 (m, n ) ∗ c ) . / ( ( 2 ∗m+ 1 ) . ∗ ( 2 ∗ n + 1 ) ) ;

N= 1 0 0 ;
r =1;
f o r a l p h a = −p i / 4 : 0 . 0 2 : p i /4
T2=@( a l p h a , m, n ) i ∗E1 (m, n )+( i ∗ k−1/R) ∗ s q r t ( c o s ( a l p h a )ˆ2 − s i n ( b e t a ) ˆ 2 ) ;
sum ( r ) = 0 ;
f o r n =0:N
f o r m=0:N

F1=@( a l p h a ) 0 . 5 ∗ ( f 1 ( −(2∗ n +1)∗ p i /b , k ∗ s i n ( a l p h a ) , b)− f 1 ( ( 2 ∗ n +1)∗ p i /b , k ∗ s i n ( a l p h a ) , b ) ) ;

F2=@( a l p h a ) 0 . 5 ∗ ( f 1 ( −(2∗m+1)∗ p i / a , k ∗ s i n ( b e t a ) , a)− f 1 ( ( 2 ∗m+1)∗ p i / a , k ∗ s i n ( b e t a ) , a ) ) ;

sum ( r )=sum ( r )+T1 (m, n ) ∗ T2 (m, n , a l p h a ) ∗ F1 ( a l p h a ) ∗ F2 ( a l p h a ) ;

I=c o n j ( sum ( r ) ) . ∗ sum ( r ) ;

end

end
I I ( r )= I ;
ang ( r )= a l p h a ;
r=r +1;
end

p l o t ( ang , I I )
FWHM=h a l f w i d t h ( ang , I I , 0 ) \% FWHM o f Central peak
 Light Diffraction : Relativistic wave equation Approach 5

Then the intensity was plotted as a function of the diffraction angle (Fig.4)
. From the figure, the Intensity profile is shown with a little asymmetry around

Fig. 4: The Intensity in the diffraction area

0 due to the shape of the slit. We found the first minima at 0.0154 as it can be
seen from the zoomed in image Fig.5

Fig. 5: The zoomed-in Intensity in the diffraction area

6 Anat Alaisaee and Mohammed Elzain

Using the same approach as the Rayleigh’s criterion, the smallest separation
can be calculated from:

2πsin(θ)D
ρ = 0.0154 = (5)
2λ
Here sin(θ) = θ with small angle approximation.
We finally get:
0.034λ
θQ,W = (6)
D
Comparing to the Rayleigh’s limit (θR = 1.22λ
D ), the relativistic wave equation
gave noticeably smaller separation as expected.

3 Conclusion

We applied a computational treatment to the problem of the diffraction limit

and obtained a limit compatible with the quantum representation of light based
on solving the relativistic wave equation of the photon. The quantum treatment
gave us a considerably higher spatial resolution limit (θQ,W = 0.034λ
D ) than the
classical treatment.

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