Imaging with three spherical mirrors.
Unobstructed, plane-symmetric systems of three spherical mirrors are investigated. Twelve parameters are necessary to specify the configuration of such a system. Constraints are determined to eliminate four of these parameters as independent degrees of freedom. These constraints ensure appropriate first-order behavior and are used to aid in two example design studies--one for a class of systems with the object at infinity and another for a class of finite conjugate projection systems. For the first study, a portion of the associated merit-function space is systematically evaluated and plotted, and the results are compared with those obtained when a global optimizer is used. For the second study, a global optimizer is employed as the primary search tool. Example systems from both studies are presented.
Howard
J M
JM
Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA.
Stone
B D
BD