Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/paper-2/section-a/a1/solution

For a photon, . Using Planck constant , speed of light and gives
The Rayleigh criterion for a circular aperture of diameter is , set by the first zero of its Airy disk. Thus the ideal diffraction-limited resolution is
The conversion to transverse separation uses the small-angle approximation. An order-of-magnitude estimate instead gives and ; the distinction is the chosen resolution criterion. These are aperture limits, before instrumental aberrations and detector sampling.

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