Practical Applications of Zernike Phase Surfaces in Optical System Modeling

There are times when it would be helpful to share performance information about an optical system without disclosing proprietary information between multiple parties. A combination of Zernike phase surfaces and paraxial surfaces can be used to model an optical system and provide a method to safely transfer the required information without disclosing the specifics of the design such as details about the optical materials or the specific element geometry. This paper deals with some of the practical aspects of this approach such as aperture stop location, the affects of windows which may change thickness on the construction of the model, and the need for multiple field positions and wavelengths.