The refractive lens heat absorption from light source caused thermal aberration analysis

When under high energy light source conditions, an optical system’s refractive lens will absorb heat from the light source. As such, the lens absorbs heat from light and transfers this to the surroundings by conduction. This heat transfer will result in lens temperature differences and introduce optical aberration into the optical system. This study aimed to calculate the heat absorption ratio and temperature distribution within the lens. The light source energy from each ray can be weighted using the Finite Element Method (FEM) of grids, which allows calculation of the thermal distribution within the lens. The optical system rays passing through the lens position are calculated by ray tracing in different Fields Of View (FOV). The lens temperature distribution is weighted to each incidence ray path, and the thermal Optical Path Difference (OPD) is calculated. The thermal OPD on the optical axis is transferred to optical aberration by fitting OPD and the Zernike polynomial. The aberration results can be used to evaluate the thermal effects upon the lens system.