Maxwell's fish-eye lens and the mirage of perfect imaging

Recent claims that Maxwell's fish-eye is a perfect lens, capable of providing images with deep subwavelength resolution, are examined. We show that the imaging properties of a dispersionless fish-eye are very similar to those of an ideal spherical cavity. Using this correspondence, we prove that the correct solution to Maxwell equations in the fish-eye gives image sizes that are consistent with the standard diffraction limit. Perfect focusing is an optical illusion that results from placing a time-reversed source at the position of the geometrical image which, when combined with the field due to the primary (object) source, mimics the behavior of a perfect drain. Issues of causality are briefly discussed. We also demonstrate that passive outlets are not a good alternative to time-reversed sources for broadband drain-like behavior and that, even if they were, they could not do a better job than conventional optical systems at providing high resolution