Low thermal stress birefringence imaging lens

An imaging lens having reduced susceptibility to thermally-induced stress birefringence for imaging an object plane to an image plane; comprising: an aperture stop positioned between the object plane and the image plane; a first group of lens elements located on the object plane side of the aperture stop; and a second group of lens elements located on the image plane side of the aperture stop; wherein the lens elements immediately adjacent to the aperture stop are fabricated using glasses having a negligible susceptibility to thermal stress birefringence as characterized by a thermal stress birefringence metric; and wherein the other lens elements in the first or second groups of lens elements are fabricated using glasses having at most a moderate susceptibility to thermal stress birefringence as characterized by the thermal stress birefringence metric.