Abstract

It is shown that under very general conditions monochromatic scalar wave fields that have a focus in the sense of geometrical optics possess some simple symmetry properties with respect to the focus. Certain well-known but poorly understood symmetry properties of the three-dimensional amplitude distribution and phase distribution in the focal region of a uniform converging spherical wave diffracted at a circular aperture are found to be immediate consequences of our results.

© 1980 Optical Society of America

Phase conjugacy and symmetries in spatially bandlimited wavefields containing no evanescent components

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