SEIDEL ABERRATIONS

Throughout this course we have seen how powerful is the paraxial approximation
when it comes to study optical systems where the object is far away, but we must
bear in mind that when the system is not in the paraxial regime we can´t apply the
elegant gaussian optics to describe it.
The paraxial approximation starts to fail when the optical aberrations (the deviation
of light rays through lenses) show up. In an ideal system, every point of the object
will focus to a point of zero surface on the image. But in real life the objects have
volume and this can cause blurring in the image. There are two types of optical
aberrations, monochromatic and chromatic ones, In this summary we will study
monochromatic aberrations.

Five primary monochromatic aberrations exists: spherical aberration, coma,

astigmatism, field curvature and distortion, but all these aberrations can be
described using Seidel equations:

Where (ρ,θ) are the exit pupil point coordinates and x0 is the field angle.
All the terms on the formula are associated to different monochromatic aberrations.

The coefficient corresponds to the spherical aberration.

Due to the nature of this aberration (radially symmetrical) the pupil angle θ is
absent in the first term.

In the second term we find the coefficient associated to the coma aberration,uoooo

This aberration affects rays from points off the optical axis, even eliminating
spherical aberration the spot where the image of an off-axis point it’s formed
can change.
The third term is associated to astigmatism, being the astigmatism coefficient lololo

This aberration also affects rays from a point off the optical axis. These rays, as
they head through the lens to the point in the image where they will be focused, pa-
ss through a lens that is, from their perspective, tilted. So they may not be focused
at the same distance from the lens, even if neither spherical aberration nor coma
prevents them from coming to a sharp focus.

The fourth term corresponds to the aberration asociated to field curvature, with the
following coefficient:

This aberration is caused when the image plane is a curved surface.

The last aberration contemplated by the equation is distortion.

Coefficient:

This aberration happens when the distance from the optical axis in the region of the
image plane where the rays are converging is not linearly proportional to the distan-
ce from the optical axis in the object.

We have seen that all these phenomenons can de described using only one
formula.