Abstract

Lens systems for electro-optical applications are often required to focus bundles of illumination, or energy, rather than form images as in traditional optical design. The standard procedures for analizing and designing image-forming optics are not well adapted to tracing illumination bundles through systems, and can even lead to false results. In a previous paper¹ the author showed that the Gaussian beam propagation equations can be modified to compute illumination bundle profiles throughout an optical system, even in the case of large incoherent bundles. Computing illumination distributions was called energy raytracing to differentiate from image raytracing. An unusual consequence of these equations is that an energy waist placed at one focal length from a lens is also imaged at one focal length on the opposite side rather than at infinity as for a point source.

© 1990 Optical Society of America