Research On Hybrid Diffractive-Refractive Telescope System

Diffractive Optics is a new subject in modern optics which have made great development in recent years. Diffractive optical elements(DOE) have special characteristics such as special color dispersion, the ability of phase modulation to the wavefront; These characteristics mean that DOE can be widely used in optical systems; One of the key parameters of DOE is diffraction efficiency; Actually, the biggest restriction to the DOE's application is the low diffraction efficiency. In the past, the fabrication techniques can't fulfill DOE with high diffraction efficiency. However, this situation has been greatly changed with the development of the theories for diffraction optics design and modern optical fabrication techniques;In chapter one of this dissertation, the development history of diffractive optics, the direction of modern diffractive optics are reviewed. And from this the general research direction and the basic research scheme are introduced. In chapter two, the basic theory of diffractive optics are introduced which include the DOE's working mechanism and the imaging characteristics; From the characteristics of DOE, it seems that DOE can be used with conventional optical system to simplify the construction and reduce the weight of the optical system; In chapter three, we will design a hybrid telescope objective and a hybrid eyepiece with high image quality. The ways to measure the diffraction efficiency of DOE are discussed in chapter four and we have actually measured the diffraction efficiency of a hybrid singlet which can be used as a telescope objective.