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R. Piestun and D. A. B. Miller,
"Electromagnetic Degrees of Freedom of an Optical System," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 17,
892–902 (2000)We present a rigorous electromatnetic
formalism for defining, evaluating, and optimizing the degrees of freedom of an optical
system. The analysis is valid for the delivery of information with electromagnetic waves
under arbitrary boundary conditions communicating between domains in 3D space. We show
that, although in principle there is an infinity of degrees of freedom, the effective
number is finite due to the presence of noise. This is in agreement with the restricted
classical theories that showed this property for specific optical systems and withing the
scalar and paraxial approximation. We further show that the best transmitting and
receivign functions are the solutions of well-defined eigenvalue equations. The present
approach is useful for understanding and designing modern optical systems, for which the
previous approaches are not applicabel, as well as for the application in inverse and
synthesis problems.
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