Abstract:Geometric optics is often described as tracing the paths of non-diffracting rays through an optical system. In the paraxial limit, ray traces can be calculated using ray transfer matrices (colloquially, ABCD matrices), which are 2 × 2 matrices acting on the height and slope of the rays. A known limitation of ray transfer matrices is that they only work for optical elements that are centered and normal to the optical axis. In this article, we provide an improved 3 × 3 matrix method for calculating paraxial ray … Show more
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