Focus-tunable lenses, e.g., liquid filled membrane lenses (MLs), have found increasingly widespread application in optical systems. If a large refractive power range is to be used, the correction of chromatic aberrations is particularly challenging: a group containing a single ML cannot be corrected over the whole refractive power range. In analogy to hybrid achromats for lenses with constant focal lengths, we present the combination of an ML and a diffractive Alvarez-Lohmann-lens (ALL) for the compensation of axial color over a large refractive power range. In contrast to the combination of multiple MLs, this does not increase the axial length of the system significantly. At the same time, the flexible adaption of the phase function of the diffractive ALL can reduce spherical aberration over the whole focal range. Design examples with ray-tracing and wave-optical simulations demonstrate the performance of the resulting hybrid tunable element. Experimental data from fabricated sample lenses provide a proof of principle.
It is well known that tunable lenses, with refractive power that can be varied, e.g., by changing the curvature of a membrane, can replace the motion of lens groups in zoom systems. Similar to classical zoom systems, the performance of these systems is heavily influenced by the fundamental first-order layout. Moreover, the first-order layout sets the most important requirements for the employed tunable lenses. In this contribution, we present a method for the analysis of a large number of possible first-order solutions for typical requirements and for the selection of the most promising layouts. The first-order solution space is mapped, allowing the layouts to be automatically filtered and plotted depending on pre-defined characteristics. Ray tracing of the marginal and chief rays combined with the traditional thin lens aberration theory provide efficient estimations of the expected installation space requirements and performance for each first-order layout. Using an example, we demonstrate good agreement between these estimations and the corresponding real lens layout, optimized by commercial raytracing software. The presented design method for zoom systems based on tunable lenses is compared with similar approaches for classical zoom lenses.
Hyperspectral image acquisition is challenging due to its three-dimensional dataset consisting of two spatial and one spectral dimensions. Available spectral imagers are either based on spatial or spectral scanning or they sacrifice spatial and spectral resolution for snapshot imaging. Compressive Sensing techniques have already been applied to spectral imaging to enhance the image acquisition, but they still rely on multiple consecutive measurements.
We utilize several diffraction orders of a novel diffractive optical element whose diffraction efficiency has been optimized for a broad wavelength range. Based on this diffractive optical element we design and compare novel compressive snapshot spectral imaging systems and present experimental results.
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