Optical design software on thermal effects analysis

Most optical systems are generally used in normal conditions, that means, in normal temperature and pressure. but some optical systems,f or example, those specially used in remote satellite or in aerospace, may be affected by the thermal effects caused by the environmental temperature variation. Some deviations will take place in the refractive indices, curvatures, element thicknesses and airspaces of these systems due to the great variation and difference in temperature, pressure and radiation, and certainly the image quality of the systems will be also not as good as that before. Therefore, when we design these systems, the most important thing is to eliminate the thermal effects caused by the environmental temperature. Most of the previous research involved description of the uniform temperature fields, and some researchers studied the theory of radial distribution of temperature gradients in optical glass lenses. Only in recent years the athermalisation techniquies are proposed and some special examples are reported. Several famous optical design corporations have adopted the techniques and used in their optical design software, for example CODE V of O.R.A. and OSLO Six of Sinclair, however these achievements are only initiatory.