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24-Ruby IV
January 4, 2016
Question

A spherical lens - where is a focus?

  • January 4, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 1355 views

A spherical lens - where is a focus? Is it a point, or we must have not spherical surfaces for a point?

One problem for Mathcad!

sph-lens.png

1 reply

19-Tanzanite
January 4, 2016

A spherical lens doesn't focus to a point (hence the term "spherical aberration"). The formula you show is a thin lens approximation. It's good for high F# lenses (long focal length compared to diameter), not so good for low F# lenses. This form is better, where d is the center thickness:

For spherical surfaces there's a "best form" lens, which gives minimum spherical aberration. The shape factor for such a lens is

where s0 is the object distance (negative if to the left of the lens). The curvature (1/radius) of the surfaces are then:

24-Ruby IV
January 4, 2016

Yes.

It will be good to calculate this in Mathcad and fixed F1 and F2 With animation!