Optical transfer function optimization based on linear expansions

The Optical Transfer Function (OTF) and its modulus the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) are metrics of optical system performance. However in system optimization, calculation times for the OTF are often substantially longer than more traditional optimization targets such as wavefront error or transverse ray error. The OTF is typically calculated as either the autocorrelation of the complex pupil function or as the Fourier transform of the Point Spread Function. We recently demonstrated that the on-axis OTF can be represented as a linear combination of analytical functions where the weighting terms are directly related to the wavefront error coefficients and apodization of the complex pupil function. Here, we extend this technique to the off-axis case. The expansion technique offers a potential for accelerating OTF optimization in lens design, as well as insight into the interaction of aberrations with components of the OTF.