ABSTRACT
A fundamental metric for optical imaging systems is the point spread function (PSF), which describes the image of a point object. To calculate a PSF the methods of geometrical optics and ray tracing are augmented by physical optics and Fourier optics calculations. For systems with polarization aberration, the PSF depends on the incident polarization state. In this chapter, the concept of a point spread function is generalized so that it describes imaging of arbitrary polarization states by introducing an amplitude response matrix (ARM) and Mueller point spread matrix (MPSM). It will be shown how the point spread function calculation of a conventional optical design program can be generalized through the use of Jones matrices and polarization ray tracing matrices. Next, the calculation of images for objects with spatially varying polarization states is considered. Polarization aberration affects the image quality of a system and effects PSF as shown in Chapter 12 and Chapter 15. Given a wavefront aberration function and Jones pupil function, the MPSM can be calculated. MPSM shows the polarization structure of the PSF and how the PSF varies with the incident polarization state. From the MPSM, an image of a point source with arbitrary polarization state can be calculated and one can vary incident polarization states and observe the resulting image polarization structure. Similarly, the optical transfer function (OTF) of conventional optics can be extended to optical transfer matrix (OTM) to show how the spatial filtering of an object during imaging depends on the incident polarization state.
