Method of calculating the aberrations of soft X‐ray and vacuum ultraviolet optical systems

Based on the the third‐order aberration theory of plane‐symmetric optical systems, this paper studies the effect on aberrations of the second‐order accuracy of aperture‐ray coordinates and the extrinsic aberrations of this kind of optical system; their calculation expressions are derived. The resultant aberration expressions are then applied to calculate the aberrations of two design examples of soft X‐ray and vacuum ultraviolet (XUV) optical systems; images are compared with ray‐tracing results using SHADOW software to validate the aberration expressions. The study shows that the accuracy of the aberration expressions is satisfactory. Soft X‐ray and vacuum ultraviolet (XUV) optical systems are widely used with synchrotron radiation, X‐ray microscopy, etc. Here an aberrations analytical analysis method for XUV multi‐element optical systems is proposed. It can calculate the contribution of different types of aberration, and thus will be helpful in the design and optimization of XUV multi‐element optical systems.