Abstract

This paper analyzes how errors of fabrication and deployment affect the position of the baseline (the optical axis) when reflective prisms are being assembled. An expression is obtained for the law of refraction in matrix form, making it possible to use a simple and obvious derivation to obtain the decoplanarity invariant. By applying it successively to each of the surfaces of a prism, we obtain after the last surface the deviation of the ray coming out of the prism from the plane of the principal cross section in the form of a function of the deviations of the normals to all the surfaces of the prism from its principal cross section—i.e., of the decoplanarity of the normals to the surfaces of the prism.

© 2011 OSA

Analysis of Errors in a Reflecting Prism*

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