what is mean by rayleighs criterion ?
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The Rayleigh Criterion
The Rayleigh criterion is the generally accepted criterion for the minimum resolvable detail - the imaging process is said to be diffraction-limited when the first diffraction minimum of the image of one source point coincides with the maximum of another.
If all parts of an imaging system are considered to be perfect, then the resolution of any imaging process will be limited by diffraction. Considering the single slit expression above, then when the wavelength is equal to the slit width, the angle for the first diffraction minimum is 90°. This means that the wave is spread all the way to the plane of the slit and will not contain resolvable information about the source of the wave. This leads to the simplified statement that the limit of resolution of any imaging process is going to be on the order of the wavelength of the wave used to image it.