Rectangular aperture on Single slit diffraction

[pacificmoon]

What the diffraction pattern would be for a rectangular aperture of width a and height b for cases where a>b, a<b, a=b.????
anybody know?


thanks

[Tide]

I believe the diffraction pattern will look like the 2-D Fourier transform of the 2-D step function.

[ZapperZ]

What the diffraction pattern would be for a rectangular aperture of width a and height b for cases where a>b, a<b, a=b.????
anybody know?


thanks

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/FraunhoferDiffractionRectangularAperture.html

In general, as Tide has mentioned, a diffraction pattern is the Fourier transforms of whatever aperture you have. What is even more interesting is that if you place a convex lens at the "appropriate" position after the aperture, the you'll get back the image of the aperture. So in effect, the lens is doing an inverse Fourier transform.

More info than you need, but hey.... :)

Zz.