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In optics, optical path length (OPL, denoted Λ in equations), also known as optical length or optical distance, is the length that light needs to travel through a vacuum to create the same phase difference as it would have when traveling through a given medium.
Optical path (OP) is the trajectory that a light ray follows as it propagates through an optical medium. The geometrical optical-path length or simply geometrical path length ( GPD ) is the length of a segment in a given OP, i.e., the Euclidean distance integrated along a ray between any two points. [ 1 ]
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. [1] Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light.
Fermat's principle is most familiar, however, in the case of visible light: it is the link between geometrical optics, which describes certain optical phenomena in terms of rays, and the wave theory of light, which explains the same phenomena on the hypothesis that light consists of waves.
Within optics, dispersion is a property of telecommunication signals along transmission lines (such as microwaves in coaxial cable) or the pulses of light in optical fiber. In optics, one important and familiar consequence of dispersion is the change in the angle of refraction of different colors of light, [2] as seen in the spectrum produced ...
Real optical systems are complex, and practical difficulties often increase the distance between distinguishable point sources. The resolution of a system is based on the minimum distance at which the points can be distinguished as individuals. Several standards are used to determine, quantitatively, whether or not the points can be distinguished.
The rear focal length f ′ is the distance from the rear principal plane H ′ to the rear focal point F ′. Front focal distance (FFD) The front focal distance (FFD) (s F) is the distance from the front focal point of the system (F) to the vertex of the first optical surface (S 1). [1] [3] Some authors refer to this as "front focal length".
Axial optical units are more complicated, as there is no simple definition of resolution in the axial direction. There are two forms of the optical unit for the axial direction. For the case of a system with high numerical aperture, the axial optical units in a distance z are given by: