← Back to Optical Phenomena

Airy Disk

Single Source
Two Sources
Rayleigh limit: 6.71 μrad

Circular Aperture Diffraction (Airy Disk)

Light passing through a circular aperture produces a central bright disk surrounded by concentric rings. This is the Airy pattern, discovered by George Biddell Airy in 1835.

I(x) = [2J₁(x)/x]²
x = πD·sin(θ)/λ

The Rayleigh criterion: two point sources are just resolved when one's central maximum falls on the other's first minimum.

θₗ = 1.22λ/D