Who should attend: Optical engineers who wish to learn more about modeling illumination systems and performing stray light analysis with ZEMAX.

The course covers non-sequential ray tracing, sources, detectors, objects, ray splitting, scattering, ghost analysis, stray light analysis, prisms, Fresnel lenses, multi-element lenses, gradient index, polarization and thin film modeling.

Pre-requisites: We assume some knowledge of the sequential ZEMAX user interface for this class since some exercises start in sequential and move to Non-Sequential ZEMAX. However you do not need any prior knowledge of illumination system design or stray light analysis to benefit from this class.

If your designs involve mixed sequential/non-sequential ray-tracing, please note that sequential ray-tracing is not covered in this class. You should consider also taking Optical Design Using ZEMAX if you are not familar with sequential ray-tracing.

Introduction

• Glass properties and selection
• Snell’s Law, refraction, reflection
• Total Internal Reflection (TIR)
• Non-Sequential ray tracing
• Three modes of using ZEMAX
• Sources, Objects, Detectors
• Object types and definitions
• Object placement rules
• Radiometric and Photometric units

Sources

• Defining and placing sources
• DLL defined sources
• File defined sources
• Radiant SourceTM models
• Slides

Objects

• Primitive objects
• Prisms
• Fresnel and faceted objects
• Beam splitters
• Defining arbitrary objects
• Complex objects
• Nesting objects
• Detectors
• Objects as detectors

Advanced features

• Polarization and thin films
• Scattering theory and models
• Ray splitting
• Scatter towards
• Consider objects list
• Coating and scatter groups
• Profiles
• Bulk scatter
• Coherence length
• Diffraction
• Gradient index media

NSC analysis

• Beam splitters
• Stray light analysis
• Reducing stray light using baffles
• Sequential ghost analysis
• Non-sequential ghost analysis
• Ghost optimization
• Using slides
• Interference and interferometers

Stray light analysis

• Beam splitters
• Reducing stray light using baffles
• Ray database
• Filter strings
• Saving ray data
• Database operations

Ghost analysis

• Sequential ghost analysis
• Non-sequential ghost analysis
• Ghost optimization

Interference and interferometers

• Coherence and fringes
• Mach Zehnder

Automating data collection

• Overview
• ZEMAX Programming Language Macros
• Universal plot

Illumination system examples

• Kohler illumination
• Abbe illumination system
• Lightpipes
• Condenser optics
• Multiple aperture telescopes

Extending analysis

• User defined sources
• User defined GRINS
• User defined diffraction
• User defined scattering
• User defined surfaces
• CAD Import/Export

Course Instructors

Neil Barrett is General Manager of Optima Research.

Michael Johnson is Optical Engineer at Optima Research.