Fifth-order aberration for soft x-ray and vacuum ultraviolet multi-element optical systems

Area of Science:

• Optics
• Optical Engineering
• Physics

Background:

• Fifth-order intrinsic aberrations are critical for soft x-ray and vacuum ultraviolet (XUV) optical systems.
• Existing methods may not fully account for aberrations in multi-element XUV systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive fifth-order aberration calculation method for multi-element XUV optical systems.
• To include both intrinsic and extrinsic aberrations for improved accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Derivation of fifth-order intrinsic aberration expressions for multi-element XUV systems.
• Development of an extrinsic aberration calculation method with derived expressions.
• Incorporation of second-order accurate aperture-ray coordinate transfer for aberration modification.

Main Results:

• Validated fifth-order aberration expressions for soft X-ray and vacuum ultraviolet optical systems.
• Demonstrated satisfactory accuracy through comparison with Shadow software ray-tracing results.
• Successful application to large-aperture double-element XUV optical system designs.

Conclusions:

• The proposed method provides accurate aberration calculations for multi-element XUV optical systems.
• The derived expressions are suitable for designing and analyzing advanced XUV optics.
• This work contributes to the precise characterization of aberrations in XUV imaging systems.