Design of the large-aperture splicing antenna with multi-curvature spherical sub-mirrors

To improve the optical performance of the large-aperture optical antenna, the Cassegrain splicing receiving antenna consisting of spherical sub-mirrors with different curvatures is designed and optimized based on the three-dimensional (3-D) vector theory of rotation and reflection. Compared with the splicing antenna consisting of spherical sub-mirrors with the same curvatures, the antenna proposed in this paper can decrease the root mean square (RMS) of the spot radius at the receiving plane from 0.0202223 m to 0.0109724 m, and the spot size decreases 45.74%. Besides, the influence of on-axial defocusing and incident ray tilt on the performance of the optical antenna is analyzed. This paper provides not only a new antenna with better performance but also a new idea for designing large-aperture splicing optical antennas.