GRIN Lens

The GRIN lens is a plane-parallel slab of material with a quadratic transverse variation of refractive index, with either a maximum or minimum on the axis that produces a lensing effect. The element has similar matrices for both work planes, but gradient constants n2 can be set independently for tangential and sagittal planes.

Note that this element represents a piece of GRIN-medium in free space. It has planar input and output interfaces. If you want to build a more complex GRIN-rod, e.g., having one or both curved interfaces, you should use the GRIN Medium element and surround it with appropriate interface elements.

Full element

../_images/ElemGrinLens.png

Beam propagation inside the lens also can be calculated.

Left half-pass

../_images/ElemGrinLens_left.png

Right half-pass

../_images/ElemGrinLens_right.png

When the gradient constant n2 is set to zero, the element becomes simple Plate of Matter.

See also

GRIN Medium, Elements Matrices, ../catalog, ../elem_props, Gradient-index optics in Wikipedia