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A curved mirror is a mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The surface may be either convex (bulging outward) or concave (recessed inward). Most curved mirrors have surfaces that are shaped like part of a sphere, but other shapes are sometimes used in optical devices. The most common non-spherical type are parabolic reflectors, found in ...
Each optical element (surface, interface, mirror, or beam travel) is described by a 2 × 2 ray transfer matrix which operates on a vector describing an incoming light ray to calculate the outgoing ray. Multiplication of the successive matrices thus yields a concise ray transfer matrix describing the entire optical system.
Radius of curvature (optics) Radius of curvature (ROC) has specific meaning and sign convention in optical design. A spherical lens or mirror surface has a center of curvature located either along or decentered from the system local optical axis. The vertex of the lens surface is located on the local optical axis.
The Cassegrain reflector is a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror, often used in optical telescopes and radio antennas, the main characteristic being that the optical path folds back onto itself, relative to the optical system's primary mirror entrance aperture. This design puts the focal point at a convenient ...
As in the Schmidt camera, this design uses a spherical primary mirror and a Schmidt corrector plate to correct for spherical aberration. In this Cassegrain configuration the convex secondary mirror acts as a field flattener and relays the image through the perforated primary mirror to a final focal plane located behind the primary. Some designs ...
Types of two-mirror optical cavities, with mirrors of various curvatures, showing the radiation pattern inside each cavity. Light confined in a resonator will reflect multiple times from the mirrors, and due to the effects of interference, only certain patterns and frequencies of radiation will be sustained by the resonator, with the others being suppressed by destructive interference.
Focal length. The focal point F and focal length f of a positive (convex) lens, a negative (concave) lens, a concave mirror, and a convex mirror. The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a ...
In geometrical optics, vergence describes the curvature of optical wavefronts. [1] Vergence is defined as. where n is the medium's refractive index and r is the distance from the point source to the wavefront. Vergence is measured in units of dioptres (D) which are equivalent to m −1. [1] This describes the vergence in terms of optical power.