A manufacturing laboratory requires an optical microscope that can clearly separate two points 0.15μm apart.
(a) The objective to be used has a half–angular aperture of 60∘ and light of wavelength 500nm is available. Calculate the minimum refractive index of the immersion medium that will allow the desired separation to be resolved.
(b) Standard immersion oil of refractive index 1.52 is employed with the same objective and wavelength. Compute the minimum distance that can now be resolved and comment on whether the specification is met.