The Rayleigh Criterion

The Rayleigh criterion is the generally accepted criterion for the minimum
resolvable detail - the imaging process is said to be diffraction-limited when the
first diffraction minimum of the image of one source point coincides with the
maximum of another.

Single slit Circular aperture

Application to vision

If all parts of an imaging system are considered to be perfect, then the resolution of
any imaging process will be limited by diffraction. Considering the single slit
expression above, then when the wavelength is equal to the slit width, the angle for
the first diffraction minimum is 90°. This means that the wave is spread all the way
to the plane of the slit and will not contain resolvable information about the source
of the wave. This leads to the simplified statement that the limit of resolution of
any imaging process is going to be on the order of the wavelength of the wave used
to image it.

In most biology laboratories, resolution is presented when the use of the microscope
is introduced. The ability of a lens to produce sharp images of two closely spaced
point objects is called resolution. The smaller the distance   by which two objects
can be separated and still be seen as distinct, the greater the resolution. The resolving
power of a lens is defined as that distance  . An expression for resolving power is
obtained from the Rayleigh criterion. In [link](a) we have two point objects
separated by a distance  . According to the Rayleigh criterion, resolution is
possible when the minimum angular separation is

where   is the distance between the specimen and the objective lens, and we have
used the small angle approximation (i.e., we have assumed that   is much smaller

than  ), so that  .

Therefore, the resolving power is