Lens Design Fundamentals

5249:1–21).

Chapter 1

The Work of the Lens Designer

Before a lens can be constructed it must be designed, that is to say, the radii of curvature of the surfaces, the thicknesses, the air spaces, the diameters of the various components, and the types of glass to be used must all be determined and specified.¹,² The reason for the complexity in lenses is that in the ideal case all the rays in all wavelengths originating at a given object point should be made to pass accurately through the image of that object point, and the image of a plane object should be a plane, without any appearance of distortion (curvature) in the images of straight lines.

Scientists always try to break down a complex situation into its constituent parts, and lenses are no exception. For several hundred years various so-called aberrations have been recognized in the imperfect image formed by a lens, each of which can be varied by changing the lens structure. Typical aberrations are spherical aberration, comatic, astigmatic, and chromatic, but in any given lens all the aberrations appear mixed together, and correcting (or eliminating) one aberration will improve the resulting image only to the extent of the amount of that particular aberration in the overall mixture. Some aberrations can be easily varied by merely changing the shape of one or more of the lens elements, while others require a drastic alteration of the entire system.

The lens parameters available to the designer for change are known as degrees of freedom. They include the radii of curvature of the surfaces, the thicknesses and airspaces, the refractive indices and dispersive powers of the glasses used for the separate lens elements, and the position of the stop or aperture-limiting diaphragm or lens mount. However, it is also necessary to maintain the required focal length of the lens at all times, for otherwise the relative aperture and image height would vary and the designer might end up with a good lens but not the one he set out to design. Hence each structural change that we make must be accompanied by some other change to hold the focal length constant. Also, if the lens is to be used at a fixed magnification, that magnification must be maintained throughout the design.

The word lens is ambiguous, since it may refer to a single element or to a complete objective such as that supplied with a camera. The term system is often used for an assembly of units such as lenses, mirrors, prisms, polarizers, and detectors. The name element always refers to a single piece of glass having polished surfaces, and a complete lens thus contains one or more elements. Sometimes a group of elements, cemented or closely airspaced, is referred to as a component of a lens. However, these usages are not standardized and the reader must judge what is meant when these terms appear in a book or article.

1.1 RELATIONS BETWEEN DESIGNER AND FACTORY

The lens designer must establish good relations with the factory because, after all, the lenses that he designs must eventually be made. He should be familiar with the various manufacturing processes and work closely with the optical engineers. He must always bear in mind that lens elements cost money, and he should therefore use as few of them as possible if cost is a serious factor. Sometimes, of course, image quality is the most important consideration, in which case no limit is placed on the complexity or size of a lens. Far more often the designer is urged to economize by using fewer elements, flatter lens surfaces so that more lenses can be polished on a single block, lower-priced types of glass, and thicker lens elements since they are easier to hold by the rim in the various manufacturing operations.

1.1.1 Spherical versus Aspheric Surfaces

In almost all cases the designer is restricted to the use of spherical refracting or reflecting surfaces, regarding the plane as a sphere of infinite radius. The standard lens manufacturing processes³,⁴,⁵,⁶,⁷ generate a spherical surface with great accuracy, but attempts to broaden the designer's freedom by permitting the use of nonspherical or aspheric surfaces historically lead to extremely difficult manufacturing problems; consequently such surfaces were used only when no other solution could be found. The aspheric plate in the Schmidt camera is a classic example. In recent years, significant effort has been expended in developing manufacturing and testing technology to fabricate, on a commercial scale, aspheric surfaces for elements such as mirrors, infrared lenses, and glass lenses.⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹¹,¹² New fabrication technologies such as single-point diamond turning, reactive ion etching, and computer-controlled free-form grinding and polishing have greatly increased the design space for lens designers. Also, molded aspheric surfaces are very practical and can be used wherever the production rate is sufficiently high to justify the cost of the mold; this applies particularly to plastic lenses made by injection molding.

In addition to the problem of generating and polishing a precise aspheric surface, there is the further matter of centering. Centered lenses with spherical surfaces have an optical axis that contains the centers of curvature of all the surfaces, but an aspheric surface has its own independent axis, which must be made to coincide with the axis containing all the other centers of curvature in the system. In the first edition of this book, it was noted that most astronomical instruments and a few photographic lenses and eyepieces have been made with aspheric surfaces, but the lens designer was advised to avoid such surfaces if at all possible.

Today, the situation has changed significantly and aspheric lenses are more commonly incorporated in designs primarily because of advances in manufacturing technologies that provide quality surfaces in a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost. Many of the better photographic lenses now sold by companies such as Canon and Nikon, for example, incorporate one or more aspheric surfaces. The lens designer needs to be aware of which glasses can currently be molded and aspherized by grinding or other processes. As mentioned previously, maintaining good communications with the fabricator cannot be overstressed.

1.1.2 Establishment of Thicknesses

Negative-power lens elements should have a center thickness between 6 and 10% of the lens diameter,to 3 in. in diameter; they may be somewhat reduced for small lenses, and they must be increased for large ones. A knife-edge lens is very hard to make and handle and it should be avoided wherever possible. A discussion of these matters with the glass-shop foreman can be very profitable. Remember that the space between the clear and trim diameters shownin Figure 1.1 is where the lens is held. The lens designer needs to be sure that the mounting will not vignette any rays.

Figure 1.1 Assigning thickness to a positive element.

As a general rule, weak lens surfaces are cheaper to make than strong surfaces because more lenses can be polished together on a block. However, if only a single lens is to be made, multiple blocks will not be used, and then a strong surface is no more expensive than a weak one.

A small point but one worth noting is that a lens that is nearly equiconvex is liable to be accidentally cemented or mounted back-to-front in assembly. If possible such a lens should be made exactly equiconvex by a trifling bending, any aberrations so introduced being taken up elsewhere in the system. Another point to note is that a very small edge separation between two lenses is hard to achieve, and it is better either to let the lenses actually touch at a diameter slightly greater than the clear aperture, or to call for an edge separation of one millimeter or more, which can be achieved by a spacer ring or a rigid part of the mounting. Remember that the clearance for a shutter or an iris diaphragm must be counted from the bevel of a concave surface to the vertex of a convex surface.

Some typical forms of lens mount are shown in Figure 1.2. When designing a lens, it is wise to keep in mind what type of mounting might be employed and any required physical adjustments for alignment. This can make the overall lens development project progress smoother. A study of optomechanics taught by Yoder can be of much benefit to the lens designer.¹⁴,¹⁵,¹⁶ In many cases, the optomechanical structure of the lens needs to be integrated into the larger system and modeled to ensure that overall system-level performance will be realized in the actual system.¹⁷

Figure 1.2 Some typical lens mounts: (a) Clamp ring, (b) spinning lip, (c) spacer and screw cap, and (d) mount centering.

1.1.3 Antireflection Coatings

Today practically all glass–air lens surfaces are given an antireflection coating to improve the light transmission and to eliminate ghost images. Since many lenses can be coated together in a large bell jar, the process is surprisingly inexpensive. However, for the most complete elimination of surface reflection over a wide wavelength range, a multilayer coating is required, and the cost then immediately rises. In the past few decades, great strides have been made in the design and production of high-efficiency antireflective coatings for optical material in both the visible and infrared spectrums.¹⁸,¹⁹

1.1.4 Cementing

Small lens elements are often cemented together, using either Canada balsam or some suitable organic polymer. However, in lenses of diameter over about 3 in., the differential expansion of crown and flint glasses is prone to cause warp-age or even fracture if hard cement is used. Soft yielding cements or a liquid oil can be introduced between adjacent lens surfaces, but in large sizes it is more usual to separate the surfaces by small pieces of tinfoil or an actual spacer ring. The cement layer is (almost) always ignored in raytracing, the ray being refracted directly from one glass to the next.

The reasons for cementing lenses together are (a) to eliminate two-surface reflection losses, (b) to prevent total reflection at the air film, and (c) to aid in mounting by combining two strong elements into a single, much weaker cemented doublet. The relative centering of the two strong elements is accomplished during the cementing operation rather than in the lens mount, which is most generally preferred.

Cementing more than two lens elements together can be done, but it is very difficult to secure perfect centering of the entire cemented component. The designer is advised to consult with the manufacturing department before planning to use a triple or quadruple cemented component. Precise cementing of lenses is not a low-cost operation, and it is often cheaper to coat two surfaces that are airspaced in the mount rather than to cement these surfaces together.

1.1.5 Establishing Tolerances

It is essential for the lens designer to assign a tolerance to every dimension of a lens, for if he does not do so somebody else will, and that person's tolerances may be completely incorrect. If tolerances are set too loose a poor lens may result, and if too tight the cost of manufacture will be unjustifiably increased. This remark applies to radii, thicknesses, airspaces, surface quality, glass index and dispersion, lens diameters, and perfection of centering. These tolerances are generally found by applying a small error to each parameter, and tracing sufficient rays through the altered lens to determine the effects of the error.

Knowledge of the tolerances on glass index and dispersion may make the difference between being able to use a stock of glass on hand, or the necessity of ordering glass with an unusually tight tolerance, which may seriously delay production and raise the cost of the lens. When making a single high-quality lens, it is customary to design with catalog indices, then order the glass, and then redesign the lens to make use of the actual glass received from the manufacturer. On the other hand, when designing a high-production lens, it is necessary to adapt the design to the normal factory variation of about ±0.0005 in refractive index and ±0.5% in V