Geometrical aberration measurement by experimental ray-tracing based on fiber point diffraction interferometry

Abstract

The geometrical aberration of an optical system is usually measured through wavefront aberration. We propose a very direct experimental ray-tracing measurement method in this paper. Two fiber point-light-sources are used to simulate an arbitrary incident ray in space, the diffracting wavefronts of the two fibers pass through the lens under test and interfere on two photographic planes. The outgoing ray intersects the photographic planes at the extrema of their phase maps, thus can be traced by connecting the two intersections. We measure four kinds of geometrical aberrations of the lens and compare them with Zemax simulation results. This method provides a new solution for the geometrical aberration measurement of an optical system.