Abstract

The Burch design of two concentric spherical mirrors is a simple relay system that is often used in the infrared region. It is corrected for third-order spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism. For really fast speeds, however, its performance is limited by higher-order spherical aberration. This makes the design unsuitable for use in the deep ultraviolet, in which the fast-speed performance would not be diffraction limited. Permitting the two mirrors depart from concentricity can give much better performance on axis, but it introduces coma and greatly reduces the useful field size. This paper describes a new version of the Burch design, with two additional elements. The resulting catadioptric system is completely concentric and is corrected for third-, fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-order spherical aberration. A design for use in the deep ultraviolet, with a numerical aperture of 0.70, will be shown.

© 1990 Optical Society of America