Construct · 1 fields · 1 citations

numerical aperture: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a single construct in optics Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
numericalaperture1 CONSTRUCTNumerical apertureABBE · 1873

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Optics / photonics

How wide a cone of light a system gathers

The numerical aperture of a lens or fibre is the product of the refractive index of the surrounding medium and the sine of the half-angle of the largest cone of light the system can accept or emit, a single dimensionless number that sets both how much light is gathered and, with the wavelength, the finest detail that can be resolved. Ernst Abbe's 1873 Beiträge zur Theorie des Mikroskops und der mikroskopischen Wahrnehmung established that resolution improves with this quantity, which is why immersion media of higher index are used to raise it. The referent is the light-gathering and resolving capacity of an optical system, appearing identically for microscope objectives, camera lenses, and optical fibres.[1]

Unit
A dimensionless number, index times the sine of the acceptance half-angle
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Found from the acceptance half-angle and the medium's refractive index, or from the diffraction-limited resolution it implies

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Nearby constructs

waveguide3 fields · 5 citationsinvariant · one construct, three mediadiffraction4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four kinds of wave spreadingaperture3 fields · 3 citationsjingle · one word, three constructs

References

  1. Abbe, E. (1873). Beiträge zur Theorie des Mikroskops und der mikroskopischen Wahrnehmung. Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie, 9(1), 413–468. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02956173

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