Design of a Tele-centric Wide Field Lens with High Relative Illumination and Low Distortion Using Third-order Aberration Analysis

This paper presents a design method for improving the low relative illumination and large distortion due to widening the field of a system. A tele-centric optical system in image space was suggested to increase the relative illumination. Through the analyses of the third-order aberrations affected by introducing aspherical surfaces, we have proposed a method to determine analytically what surface should be aspheric to correct each aberration effectively. By utilizing this method to design a wide field lens, a tele-centric wide field lens with f-number of F/2.0 was obtained. Even though the field angle is 120 degrees, it has a very low distortion less than -2% and high relative illumination more than 73.7%. In conclusion, this analytic method for selecting aspherical surfaces is expected to serve as a useful way to find design solutions.