Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-2/section-b/b7/c/solution

Use SI units throughout: , , and . The effective propagation distance is , giving
In the supplied Cornu spiral, the endpoint at is approximately . Hence
More accurate Fresnel integrals, and , give . The central light intensity is increased to about times the unobscured value, an increase of roughly .
There is no violation of conservation of energy: the aperture reduces the total transmitted power, while removing contributions that partly cancel the central field redistributes the transmitted power across the observation plane. In particular, the square aperture does not give the same central field as a circular aperture of a superficially similar size.
Figure 1.
Calculated central intensity and an off-axis section for the square aperture in the Fresnel approximation
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