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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Optics and Photonics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1486924
This article is part of the Research Topic Freeform Optics: From Theory to Applications View all 4 articles

Desensitization design of freeform off-axis TMA optical systems with configuration selection

Provisionally accepted
Chengming Ren Chengming Ren 1,2Qingyu Meng Qingyu Meng 1*Qi Chen Qi Chen 1,2*
  • 1 Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changchun, China
  • 2 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The off-axis three-mirror anastigmatic (TMA) optical system has the advantages of eliminating all primary aberrations, having no aperture obscuration, no chromatic aberration, and good environmental adaptability, making it essential in high-performance optical instruments. Freeform surfaces, with their rich degrees of freedom (DOFs) in mathematical representation, positively affect the image quality and sensitivity of optical systems. When applied correctly to off-axis TMA optical systems, they can achieve fast F-numbers, large fields of view (FOVs), and long focal lengths. There are dozens of configurations for off-axis TMA optical systems, and freeform surfaces can be combined in numerous ways within these systems. This paper first analyzes the sensitivity of off-axis TMA optical systems with different configurations, selects the configuration with the lowest sensitivity, and combines it with a low sensitivity freeform surface combination to achieve high-performance freeform off-axis TMA optical systems with low sensitivity.

    Keywords: Optical design, Freeform surface, off-axis TMA optical systems, low sensitivity, configuration selection

    Received: 27 Aug 2024; Accepted: 18 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ren, Meng and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Qingyu Meng, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changchun, China
    Qi Chen, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changchun, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.