Sunday, 10 May 2020

optics - Why doesn't a Gaussian beam converge to a point?


No matter what lens is put in the beam path of a Gaussian beam, it will always go through a waist of non-zero width.


Why not just a point? I know the maths, I'm wondering whether there is any physics that prevents it.



Answer



While I concur that you may use the uncertainty principle to understand this, it isn't necessary. If you have a classical EM field that's governed by the nice wave equation derived from Maxwell's equations, then you can compute a diffraction integral that tells you that you must have a finite waist, even if the far-field divergence is very large.


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