Abstract

A method for investigating the image-forming characteristics of hypothetical optical systems by using Hamilton’s characteristic function, described previously, is applied to a simple optical system: the thick concentric single lens with media of equal refractive indices on either side of it. As a byproduct, the study yields a result that is surprising in view of well-known properties of the concentric lens: that, to a fifth-order approximation, a single lens of the kind described does exist, in theory, which sharply images a surface other than the aplanatic surface.

© 1967 Optical Society of America

Characteristic Functions for Special Image Formations and for a General Thick Lens

Max Herzberger and Donald R. Wilder
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 54(6) 773-790 (1964)

Hamilton’s Mixed and Angle Characteristic Functions and Diffraction Aberration Theory

Arthur B. Shafer
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(5) 630-639 (1967)

Use of Laser Radiation in the Calibration of Spectrometer Scanning Functions*

Louis Sica
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(11) 1366-1372 (1967)

Optics of Circular Tubes Used for Plasma Confinement

A. D. Stokes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(9) 1100-1105 (1967)

Ambiguity of the Transfer Function with Partially Coherent Illumination

Richard E. Swing and James R. Clay
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 57(10) 1180-1189 (1967)