ABERRATIONS IN CURVED GRADED-INDEX FIBERS

Graded-index fibers can be efficiently used as relays and therefore it is necessary to study the aberrations in the images transmitted through these media. Since curvature in fibers is inevitable, aberrations in curved graded-index fibers are also important. In this paper, we have obtained explicit expressions for the second- and third-order aberration coefficients in curved fibers which reduce to the ones for the straight fiber as the radius of curvature of the fiber tends to infinity. It is shown by numerical calculations that the total aberrations (up to third order) in a graded-index fiber depend critically on the values of grading parameters alpha and beta . It is also shown that for small values of grading parameter, alpha similar 2 cm** minus **1, curvature effects are significant for radii of curvatures less than similar 25 cm, whereas for larger values of the grading parameter, alpha similar 50 cm** minus **1, curvature affects the aberrations for radii of curvatures less than about 10 cm.