The optical advantages of curved focal plane arrays

The design of optical systems for digital cameras is complicated by the requirement that the image surface be planar, which results in complex and expensive optics. We analyze a compact optical system with a curved image surface and compare its performance to systems with planar image surfaces via optics analysis and image system simulation. Our analysis shows that a curved image surface provides a way to lower the number of optical elements, reduce aberrations including astigmatism and coma, and increase off-axis brightness and sharpness. A method to fabricate curved image focal plane arrays using monolithic silicon is demonstrated. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.