Nondestructive measurement of refractive index profile of gradient refractive index rod lens

In this paper, a simple nondestructive method is described to obtain the refractive index profile of a gradient refractive index rod lens by means of optical coherence tomography. The approach exploits the fact that optical coherence tomography provides a direct measurement of the optical path of the light traveled through a gradient refractive index rod lens. The refractive index profile for a gradient refractive index rod lens is retrieved by iterative fitting of the optical path calculated by the ray tracing method with that experimentally measured using optical coherence tomography. The measured refractive index profile is in good agreement with theory.