Freeform surface optical design of Zernike polynomials based on nodal aberration theory

From the nodal aberration theory, aberration nodes will move to other locations of field of view when the optical element is decentered or tilted in rotationally symmetric system, which will lead to uncorrected off-axis aberration at locations of large field of view; cause the terms of wavefront aberration function are linked directly to the terms of Zernike polynomials, the aberrated wavefront of the system can be fitted by Zernike polynomials. At the same time, specific terms of Zernike polynomials can be selected to correct wavefront aberration efficiently by evaluating full-field display. Based on the method above, an off-axis optical system with field of view of 3°×3°is designed with two freeform surfaces and one aspheric surface, and certain Zernike polynomials are chosen as the descriptor of freeform surfaces. Keywords:Nodal aberration theory, freeform surface, Zernike polynomials, full-field display.