Abstract

We study the formation of caustic surfaces formed in both convex-plano and plano-convex aspheric lenses by considering a plane wave incident on the lens along the optical axis. Using the caustic formulas and a paraxial approximation we derive expressions to evaluate the spherical aberration at third-order and also provide a formula to reduce it, where the first-order aspheric term is given in a simply analytic equation. Furthermore, we redefine the method to evaluate the circle of least confusion for a positive lens as a function of all parameters involved in the process of refraction through the aspheric lenses.

© 2013 Optical Society of America

Caustics in a meridional plane produced by plano-convex conic lenses

Maximino Avendaño-Alejo, Dulce González-Utrera, and Luis Castañeda
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 28(12) 2619-2628 (2011)

Properties of caustics produced by a positive lens: meridional rays

Maximino Avendaño-Alejo, Luis Castañeda, and Ivan Moreno
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 27(10) 2252-2260 (2010)

Caustics in a meridional plane produced by concave conic mirrors

Samuel Maca-García, Maximino Avendaño-Alejo, and Luis Castañeda
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 29(9) 1977-1985 (2012)

Huygens’ Principle: Exact wavefronts produced by aspheric lenses

Maximino Avendaño-Alejo, Luis Castañeda, Arturo Maldonado, and Naser Qureshi
Opt. Express 21(24) 29874-29884 (2013)

Analytic aspheric coefficients to reduce the spherical aberration of lens elements used in collimated light

Gabriel Castillo-Santiago, Maximino Avendaño-Alejo, Rufino Díaz-Uribe, and Luis Castañeda
Appl. Opt. 53(22) 4939-4946 (2014)