spherical aberration

English

A simulation of spherical aberration (top to bottom: over-corrected by ½ wavelength, perfectly corrected, under-corrected; left to right: inside focus, perfectly focused, outside focus)

Alternative forms

• diopteric aberration

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsfɪɹ.ɪk.l̩ ˌæb.əˈɹeɪ.ʃn̩/

Noun

spherical aberration (plural spherical aberrations)

1. (optics) A type of lens aberration which causes blurriness, particularly away from the centre of the lens.
   • 1991, Virendra N. Mahajan, Aberration Theory Made Simple, page 27:

     For p = -1, the values of q giving minimum spherical aberration (q = 0.71) and zero coma (q = 0.8) are approximately equal to each other.

   • 2002, Michael J. Kidger, Fundamental Optical Design, page 151:

     If the refractive index is low, the minimum spherical aberration is not greatly affected by the fact that the second lens operates in a converging beam, and the spherical aberration is approximately equal to h⁴K³.

   • 2005, Mark Packer, I. Howard Fine, Richard S. Hoffman, “9: Wavefront Technology of Spherical Aberration”, in I. Howard Fine, Mark Packer, Richard Hoffman, editors, Refractive Lens Surgery, volume 1, page 81:

     Conventional spherical intraocular lenses (IOLs) have positive spherical aberration.

Translations

type of lens aberration

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 球差 (zh) (qiúchā)

• Dutch: sferische aberratie m
• Finnish: pallopoikkeama, palloaberraatio
• French: aberration sphérique f
• Portuguese: aberração esférica f
• Romanian: aberație sferică
• Thai: ความคลาดทรงกลม (kwaam-klâat-song-glom)

See also

• spherical mirror