Wavefront and point-like obstacle

[Talker1500]

After reading about the diffraction and the multiple slits experiment, I've been wondering about what would happen if instead of slits, there were point-like obstacles (i.e., atoms). Using a plane wavefront and a finite number of obstacles, how would the light interact with this system?

 

[Claude Bile]

You would need to work out the transmission function of the aperture/array. The diffraction pattern at the far-field (Fraunhofer diffraction pattern) will be the Fourier transform of this transmission function.

Claude.