The emergence of imaging schemes capable of overcoming Abbe's diffraction barrier is revolutionizing optical microscopy. In 1873, the German physicist Ernst Abbe realized that the resolution of ...

When a laser beam is incident on a narrow opaque object such as a fine wire or a strand of hair, the resulting diffraction pattern is similar to the diffraction pattern of a slit of the same width as ...

The waves always 'spread' to some extent into the area beyond the gap. This is diffraction - the spreading out of waves when they go through a gap, or past the edge of a barrier. The extent of the ...