ABERRATION

• An aberration is a departure of the performance of a system

from the predicted path
• It is an inability of a lens to bring all the incident rays to a
desired image point
 TERMS TO BE REMEMBER

o DISPERSION
When white light is falls on a prism ,the light is
splitted in seven colors ,this phenomenon is known as
dispersion of light
o DISPERSIVE POWER( )
the angle formed between the red and blue light
around yellow indicates the dispersive power of the
medium
• ABBE NUMBER
the abbe number also known as
constringence and V number is a
measure of a material’s dispersion
Abb number for common optical
media typically ranges from 20 to 70
 CHROMATIC ABERATION
• Chromatic aberration occur as a result
of unequal refraction of the various
wavelength of light
• When white light is refracted at an
optical interface , it is dispersed into
its component wavelengths or colors
• The shorter the wavelength of light
the more it is deviated on refraction
 CAUSES
• It is caused due to the dispersion of white light when
refracted through a lens
• Optical indices are different for different wavelengths of
white light
• The refractive index decreases with increasing wavelength ,
so blue having smallest wavelength will be refracted more
and red with highest wavelength will be refracted less
TYPES OF CHROMATIC ABERATION
• Longitudinal or axial chromatic aberration (LCA)

• Transverse or lateral chromatic aberration (TCA)

 LONGITUDINAL CHROMATIC ABERRATION:

• It occurs when different wavelength

focus at different points along the
horizontal optical axis as a result of
dispersion of white light through
lens
 TRANSVERSE CHROMATIC ABERRATION
• It occurs when different
wavelength (red, yellow, blue)
focus at separate points in a
vertical plane
• Refraction by the human eye also subjects for chromatic
aberration, which is approximately 0.5d between the red and
green wavelength
• the effect is to certain extent neutralized by the fact that the
eye is normally focused so that the rays of greatest intensity
(yellow)form the most sharply defined image, while the
colors of longer and shorter focus from circles of relatively
low intensity compared with this and their images are
therefore neglected
 Optical treatment

Chromatic aberration cannot eliminate but can reduce by the following

procedures

• Lens material with higher abbe number

• By achromatic lens system
Lens material with higher abbe number
• Abbe number having an inverse relation with refractive index and
chromatic aberration
• Lens material with higher abbe number and decrease refractive index will
decrease chromatic aberration
 Achromatic lens system

• Achromatic lens system are composed of lenses

of varying materials combined so that the
dispersion is neutralized while he overall
refractive power is preserved
• For example by combining a convex lens of high
refractive power and low dispersive power with a
concave lens of low refractive power but high
dispersive power ,the aberration can be
neutralized while preserving most of the convex
lens refractive power