K. Dupraz, G. Dupuis, A. Martens, J-M. Rax, F. Zomer
European Journal of Physics, (2024), Volume 45, Number 2, 025303
A method to derive the Fraunhofer diffraction integral by making use of the theory of distributions is presented. With respect to standard textbooks, the pedagogical benefit of this method is that it uniquely uses the far-field approximation of the Fresnel diffraction integral. An operator representation of Fresnel diffraction is also derived.