Monocentric lenses are excellent candidates for compact, broadband, high resolution, wide-field imaging. Traditional monocentric designs produce a curved image surface and have therefore found limited utility. The use of an appropriately machined fiber bundle to relay the curved image plane onto a flat focal plane array (FPA) has recently emerged as a potential solution. Unfortunately the spatial sampling that is intrinsic to the fiber bundle relay can have a negative effect on image resolution, and vignetting has been identified as another potential shortcoming of this solution. In this paper we describe a metamaterial optical element that avoids the deleterious effects of sampling and can provide a high-quality image relay from the curved monocentric image surface to a flat FPA. Using quasi-conformal transformation optics (TO) a classical Maxwell’s “fish-eye” lens is transformed into a shape with a concave front surface and flat back surface. We quantify image quality metrics such as spot size, field of view, and light efficiency along with manufacturing cost metrics such as index contrast and anisotropy. Based on this analysis we identify and fully optimize a monocentric lens in combination with a TO-designed GRIN image relay optic.

Date Published: 17 May 2016
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 9822, Advanced Optics for Defense Applications: UV through LWIR, 98220U (17 May 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2228123

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9822:
Advanced Optics for Defense Applications: UV through LWIR
Jay N. Vizgaitis; Bjørn F. Andresen; Peter L. Marasco; Jasbinder S. Sanghera; Miguel P. Snyder, Editor(s)