spherical aberration

English

A simulation of spherical aberration (top to bottom: over-corrected by ½ wavelength, perfectly corrected, under-corrected; left to right: inside focus, perfectly focused, outside focus)

Alternative forms

diopteric aberration

Pronunciation

(US) IPA^(key): /ˈsfɪɹ.ɪk.l̩ ˌæb.əˈɹeɪ.ʃn̩/

Noun

spherical aberration (plural spherical aberrations)

(optics) A type of lens aberration which causes blurriness, particularly away from the centre of the lens.
- 1991, Virendra N. Mahajan, Aberration Theory Made Simple, page 27,
  For p = -1, the values of q giving minimum spherical aberration (q = 0.71) and zero coma (q = 0.8) are approximately equal to each other.
- 2002, Michael J. Kidger, Fundamental Optical Design, page 151,
  If the refractive index is low, the minimum spherical aberration is not greatly affected by the fact that the second lens operates in a converging beam, and the spherical aberration is approximately equal to h⁴K³.
- 2005, Mark Packer, I. Howard Fine, Richard S. Hoffman, 9: Wavefront Technology of Spherical Aberration, I. Howard Fine, Mark Packer, Richard Hoffman (editors), Refractive Lens Surgery, Volume 1, page 81,
  Conventional spherical intraocular lenses (IOLs) have positive spherical aberration.

Translations

type of lens aberration

Dutch: sferische aberratie m
Finnish: pallopoikkeama, palloaberraatio