Next-Gene­ra­tion Optics Soft­ware: Trends in Technology

But ray tra­cing is not enough to cal­cu­late the point spread func­tion (PSF) and modu­la­tion trans­fer func­tion (MTF) in a lens sys­tem. To com­pen­sate, ray-tra­cing soft­ware deve­lo­pers may include phy­si­cal optics noti­ons in their model-buil­ding pro­grams. In this way, the cen­tral tech­no­logy applied throug­hout the ray-tra­cing soft­ware addres­ses the con­nec­tion bet­ween ray and phy­si­cal optics at the exit pupil of an opti­cal sys­tem model. Deve­lo­p­ments in modern optics and pho­to­nics have increased the demand for a more tho­rough inclu­sion of phy­si­cal optics in sys­tems mode­ling. One such exam­ple of a deman­ding sys­tem is AR/MR glas­ses, which include micro- and nano-optics, par­ti­ally coher­ent sources, or a com­bi­na­tion of all of these.

Simi­lar to sol­ving for PSF and MTF in ray-tra­cing soft­ware, adding phy­si­cal optics con­side­ra­ti­ons to any mode­ling pro­gram is often approa­ched by asking how phy­si­cal optics should be incor­po­ra­ted into ray optics soft­ware. But there are pit­falls to this approach. One pro­blem is that it assu­mes one knows in advance where in an opti­cal sys­tem phy­si­cal optics tre­at­ment is nee­ded. This intro­du­ces a risk of miss­ing unfo­re­seen and poten­ti­ally important phy­si­cal effects. But the main pro­blem is one of prin­ci­ple: Light is repre­sen­ted by rays in ray optics and by elec­tro­ma­gne­tic fields in phy­si­cal optics. In gene­ral, rays do not include all field infor­ma­tion. For this reason, swit­ching back and forth bet­ween ray optics and phy­si­cal optics cal­cu­la­ti­ons is not sui­ta­ble or prac­ti­cal for suc­cessful modeling.

Frank Wyrow­ski of Light­Trans Inter­na­tio­nal intro­du­ces an alter­na­tive approach in this web­i­nar: Start­ing from the more gene­ral model of phy­si­cal optics, how can one iden­tify and apply the gene­ra­liza­tion of ray optics inside the frame­work of phy­si­cal optics? Wyrow­ski pres­ents the mode­ling soft­ware that results from ans­we­ring this ques­tion, show­ca­sing how phy­si­cal optics mode­ling can be made more prac­ti­cal and useful for advan­cing technologies.