Modeling and design of a multichannel chromatic aberration compensated imaging system

Conventional multichannel imaging systems comprise of many optical channels having similar imaging properties, namely field-of-view (FOV) and angular resolution/magnification. We demonstrated that the different optical channels can be designed such that each optical channel captures a different FOV and angular resolution compared to its neighboring channels. We designed and experimentally demonstrated a three-channel multiresolution imaging system where the first optical channel has the narrowest FOV (7°) and highest angular resolution (0.0096°) and the third optical channel has the widest FOV (80°) and lowest angular resolution (0.078°)1. The second optical channel has intermediate properties. The performance of the demonstrated three-channel imaging system however was affected by chromatic aberrations as it was designed for a single wavelength of 587.6 nm. The first optical channel was largely influenced by longitudinal chromatic aberration while the third channel by lateral chromatic aberration. Therefore, we have replaced the aspherical refractive lenses by hybrid lenses, which contain diffractive structures on top of their refractive surfaces, in the three-channel multiresolution imaging system to reduce its chromatic aberrations. The performance of the three channels with hybrid lenses is compared with those of the corresponding channels without hybrid lenses. The longitudinal color aberration of the first optical channel has been reduced from 1.7 mm to 0.2 mm; whereas the lateral color aberration of the third optical channel has been reduced from 250 μm to 14 μm. In conclusion, the hybrid lenses have reduced the chromatic aberrations of the three channels and extended the operating spectral range of the imaging system in the visible wavelength range.