Distributed wavefront coding for wide angle imaging system

Abstract

The emerging paradigm of imaging systems, known as wavefront coding, which employs joint optimization of both the optical system and the digital post-processing system, has not only increased the degrees of design freedom but also brought several significant system-level benefits. The effectiveness of wavefront coding has been demonstrated by several proof-of-concept systems in the reduction of focus-related aberrations and extension of depth of focus. While previous research on wavefront coding was mainly targeted at imaging systems having a small or modest field of view (FOV), we present a preliminary study on wavefront coding applied to panoramic optical systems. Unlike traditional wavefront coding systems, which only require the constancy of the modulation transfer function (MTF) over an extended focus range, wavefront-coded panoramic systems particularly emphasize the mitigation of significant off-axis aberrations such as field curvature, coma, and astigmatism. The restrictions of using a traditional generalized cubic polynomial pupil phase mask for wide angle systems are studied in this paper. It is shown that a traditional approach can be used when the variation of the off-axis aberrations remains modest. Consequently, we propose to study how a distributed wavefront coding approach, where two surfaces are used for encoding the wavefront, can be applied to wide angle lenses. A few cases designed using Zemax are presented and discussed