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ERIC Number: EJ860663
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Nov
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-0807
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Close Up of Monochromatic Aberrations Using Snell's Law: An Undergraduate Computational Experiment
Levesque, L.
European Journal of Physics, v30 n6 p1201-1215 Nov 2009
Images formed from light rays refracting a spherical surface are often introduced in textbooks using the paraxial approximation. Incoming rays propagating from the object meeting the surface of a transparent medium at a given point for which the angle is larger than 15 degrees with respect to the normal are not described accurately from the paraxial approximation. Instead of using the paraxial approximation, the fundamental law of refraction (Snell's law) is used in this paper to predict the image location of an object situated at a given distance from a refracting spherical surface. Positions of focal points are also computed for incident rays refracting at various positions along the spherical curvature to illustrate the concept of spherical, comatic and astigmatic aberrations. Computations of aberrations from plano-convex lenses are also presented and proper positioning of lenses in order to reduce aberrations when focusing is also discussed. (Contains 12 figures.)
Institute of Physics Publishing. The Public Ledger Building Suite 929, 150 South Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 215-627-0880; Fax: 215-627-0879; e-mail: info@ioppubusa.com; Web site: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/EJP
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A