The use of merit functions based on wavefront aberrations in automatic lens design

Area of Science:

• Optical Engineering
• Computational Optics
• Image Science

Background:

• Automatic design of optical systems requires robust merit functions for optimization.
• Traditional merit functions can be less effective in the final stages of refining well-corrected systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of three distinct merit functions in the automatic design of optical systems.
• To demonstrate the application of these merit functions in optimizing complex optical designs.

Main Methods:

• Application of mean square value of wave aberrations as a merit function.
• Utilization of variance of wavefront aberrations for system optimization.
• Implementation of a Hopkins' suggested MTF-based function variance for design refinement.

Main Results:

• All three merit functions demonstrated significant power in the final optimization stages.
• The selected merit functions facilitated automatic control of the minimization process.
• The study provides practical design examples illustrating the methods' efficacy.

Conclusions:

• Mean square wave aberrations, wavefront aberration variance, and MTF-based variance are effective merit functions for optical design.
• These functions are well-suited for automatic optimization and refinement of well-corrected optical systems.