Abstract

A discussion on the interest of the study of diffractional image formation theory in a course of Fourier Optics is carried out. We develope a general description of the partially coherent illumination case. Images of extended objects like the line and periodical structures are given for different values of the coherence parameter. The apparent transfer function is introduced as a quality criterium. For the incoherent illumination this parameter is compared with the optical transfer function.

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