We present an original and compact optical system inspired by the unusual eyes of a Strepsipteran insect called Xenos peckii. It is designed for a field of view of 30°and is composed of multiple telescopes. An array of prisms of various angles is placed in front of these telescopes in order to set a different field of view for each channel. This type of camera operates in the [ 3 − 5 μm] spectral bandwidth and is entirely integrated in a Dewar in order to maximize its compactness. Experimental images are presented to validate this design.

We designed a cheap broadband uncooled microimager operating in the long-wavelength infrared range using only one lens at a minimal cost for the manufacturing process. The approach is based on thin optics where the device volume is small and therefore inexpensive materials can be used because some absorption can be tolerated. We have used a Fresnel lens on a thin silicon substrate. Up to now, Fresnel lenses have not been used for broadband imaging because of their chromatic properties. However, working in a relatively high diffraction order can significantly reduce chromatism. A prototype has been made for short range or indoor low-cost surveillance applications like people counting, and experimental images are presented.

Design of miniature and light cameras requires an optical design breakthrough to achieve good optical performance. Solutions inspired by animals' eyes are the most promising. The curvature of the retina offers several advantages, such as uniform intensity and no field curvature, but this feature is not used. The work presented here is a solution to spherically bend monolithic IR detectors. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, a higher fill factor is obtained and the device fabrication process is not modified. We made an IR eye camera with a single lens and a curved IR bolometer. Images captured are well resolved and have good contrast, and the modulation transfer function shows better quality when comparing with planar systems.

We present in this Letter a type of quadriwave lateral shearing interferometer for x-ray phase imaging. This device is based on a phase chessboard, and we take advantage of the large spectrum of the source to produce interferograms with a propagation-invariant contrast. Such a grating has been created for hard x-ray interferometry and experimentally tested on a synchrotron beamline at Soleil.

We present the range of optical architectures for imaging systems based on a single optical component, an aperture stop, and a detector. Thanks to the formalism of third-order Seidel aberrations, several strategies of simplification and miniaturization of optical systems are examined. Figures of merit are also introduced to assess the basic optical properties and performance capabilities of such systems; by this way, we show the necessary trade-off between simplicity, miniaturization, and optical performance.

The performances of a compact infrared optical system using advanced pinhole optics for wide field applications are given. This concept is adapted from the classical Tisse design in order to fit with infrared issues. Despite a low light gathering efficiency and a low resolution in comparison with classical lenses, pinhole imagery provides a long depth of field and a wide angular field of view. Moreover, by using a simple lens that compresses the field of view, the angular acceptance of this pinhole camera can be drastically widened to a value around 180°. This infrared compact system is named pinhole fisheye since it is based on the field lens of a classical fisheye system.

In this letter we present a method to design the freeform surfaces of an off-axis unobscured two-mirror telescope by integration of a system of differential equations. The system is derived from the differentiation of the Fermat path's principle and is integrated as an ordinary differential equation problem. The method is used to design the freeform surfaces of a telescope whose performance is verified in off-the-shelf optical design software (Zemax).

There is an emerging demand for compact infrared instruments, imagers and/or spectrometers, integrated on ground or air vehicles for spatial and spectral data collection. To reach this goal, technological barriers have already been overcome, leading to the development of infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPAs) for high-performance applications (megapixel format, bispectral technology) but also for low-cost and high-volume manufacturing (technology of uncooled micro-bolometers). The next step is to reduce the optics and make it compatible with the successful IRFPAs fabrication technology. This paper presents MULTICAM, a small cryogenic infrared camera. This optical system is composed of multi-level arrays of microlenses integrated in the cryostat and inspired from invertebrate compound eyes. First experimental results will be presented.