Far-field Diffraction Pattern of Two Opaque Rectangles Located in Parallel Planes

Abstract The far-field diffraction pattern from two opaque rectangular objects coaxial with the incident beam direction, but in different parallel planes, has been calculated. There is no restriction on the depth separation of the rectangles as the far-field approximation is applied only after the second diffracting object. The resulting expressions have been evaluated numerically. The possibility of using these results to calculate the images from Fraunhofer holograms is discussed.