The system performance of high-precision optical systems is highly sensitive to transient mechanical and thermal disturbances. In order to precisely predict a systems operating performance these disturbances need to be modeled, simulated, and analyzed. In this work, a numerical method is presented which allows for the consideration of transient mechanical rigid body motions, mechanical and thermal elastic deformations, and thermally induced refraction index changes in the transient simulation of optical systems operated with lasers.
The performance of high-precision optical systems can be affected by the presence of mechanical stresses in the optical material. In this work, we present a ray tracing method which considers the ray’s state of polarization while propagating through a mechanically stressed lens. The framework of elastic multibody systems is used to compute stresses in optical elements and generate the information about lens deformations, refraction indices, etc. These are required for the polarization ray tracing method employed here. The proposed ray tracing scheme considers birefringence at the lens-front and uses gradient-index ray tracing within the lens. Simultaneously, the polarization states are traced with the aid of Jones vectors. Finally, the correlation of the traced polarization states and the mechanical stresses is investigated.
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