An Introduction to Quantum Optics

4Optical Imaging

The concept of classical imaging was well developed in optics prior to the electromagnetic wave theory of light. The early theories of geometric optics provided quite a few phenomenological explanations of the point-to-point relationship between an object plane and an image plane. In these theories, light is treated as a bundle of rays and the image is explained as the result of the peculiar way of their propagation. A later theory of classical imaging, namely, the theory of physical optics, is based on the concept of waves. Light is treated as waves that propagate to and interfere at a space-time point. The image is considered to be the result of constructive—destructive interference among these wavelike bundle rays, or bundle ...