Design of a dual field-of-view optical system for infra-red focal-plane arrays

In this paper, the design of a dual field-of-view optical system for 3-5 mum infra-red focal-plane arrays is described. Preliminary calculations are done to determine the first-order parameters of the narrow and the wide-field modes. To achieve a switchable dual field-of-view system, two different optical configurations, one based on the axial motion of a lens group and the other based on a rotate-in motion of two separated lens groups, axe studied and compared. Diffractive and conic surfaces are used to control the color and the monochromatic aberrations with less number of total lenses used. Paraxial and real-ray modelling of the Narcissus effect is described. It is shown that the rotate-in scheme achieves better optical performance in both the narrow and the wide-field modes. The axial-motion scheme suffers from poor lateral color in the wide-angle mode. The final optical designs along with their aberrations curves and MTF plots are presented showing excellent performance.