Non-linear corrections to aberration sensitivity of unstable-cavity geometries.
The aberration sensitivity of unstable-cavity geometries is studied by incorporating the change of the ray path by the intra-cavity aberrations in geometric-optic approximation. The first order non-linear correction in a positive branch, confocal unstable cavity is obtained analytically. In particular, as the optic field passes through an aberration plane in which the higher order aberrations are presented, more higher order aberrations are induced on the wavefront of optic field, and the original transverse modes are mixed. This mode mixing is studied by introducing non-constant propagation matrices. Similar to the linear results, we find that the non-linear corrections to aberration sensitivity decreases when geometric magnification or aberration orders increase.
Wang
Xiao-Jun
XJ
Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, P.O. box 8009-11, Beijing 100088, China. wang xiaojun@iapcm.ac.cn