Ray-tracing With Fiber Point Diffraction Interferometry And Its Application

Ray tracing is the method for calculating the path of light rays accurately by applying the law of refraction to every refracting surface of the optical system.Ray tracing is the direct way to analyze the imaging problem of an optical system during the optical design.Ray tracing is mostly achieved through computer algorithm.Once applying ray tracing experimentally,not only can we prove the result of optic design,but also provide a new way to measure many optic parameters of an optical system.This thesis presents a method that could experimentally trace the ray propagation of an optical system based on Hartmann principle.The ray represented by the line connecting 2point light sources(PLSs)intersects with two parallel photographic planes,which separated at a distinct distance.This line is the target ray.Its intersection with each photographic plane lies at which the optical path difference to the 2 PLSs reaches its maximum,thus can be derived from the interferograms of the 2 PLSs.The path of the target ray can be reconstructed by connecting these intersections.Besides,the two PLSs representing the light ray could be real PLSs.It also could be the image points after passing through an optical system.If the PLS is an object point,the traced ray is the incident ray.Otherwise,the traced ray is the emergent ray.Using single mode optical fibers as the PLSs,CCD arrays as the imaging plane,this thesis designs a series of experiments to verify the feasibility of the experimental ray tracing method.As an example of application,a set of system to measure the focal length of lens is built.In the end,the thesis analysis the possible errors of the system and evaluates the measurement uncertainty of the focal length measurement result.