Editorial Feature

What is Optical Aberration and Types of Optical Aberration?

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Dec 1 2007

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Optical aberration can be considered as a flaw or distortion in the image generated by an optical system, such as a lens or mirror, in comparison to the original image. Optical aberration may arise from several factors such as limitations or defects in optical components.

There are six types of optical aberration:

Astigmatism
Chromatic Aberration
Coma
Distortion
Field Curvature
Spherical Aberration

An ideal lens should focus on an input parallel light beam to a perfect focal point. The focal point should then have infinite size. Unfortunately, in the real world, due to diffraction and importantly lens aberrations, the focal point or spot of a lens is finite in size.

The degree of lens aberration and diffraction can, therefore, be measured by the size of the focal point or spot.

This article was updated on the 28^th January, 2020

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