ABSTRACT
The goal of the design of optical components, usually called optical system design, is to define and specify a suitable optical component, group, or system for a given imaging task. This involves the determination of so-called conjugated parameters that result directly from the known or given parameters and the choice of an appropriate optical system that allows reducing optical aberrations and performing imaging at high quality. Hence, basic considerations regarding the interrelations of optical imaging, underlying mechanisms for the formation of aberrations as well as the impact of manufacturing tolerances on the imaging performance, have to be taken into account during optical system design. Any optical imaging can be described by characteristic parameters in the so-called object space and corresponding parameters in the image space found behind an imaging system. Inclined incidence of light rays can give rise to distortion, which usually occurs in aberration-corrected systems and depends on the position of the aperture stop.
