First Order Optical System Design

This course can also be taken for academic credit as ECEA 5600, part of CU Boulder’s Master of Science in Electrical Engineering degree. Optical instruments are how we see the world, from corrective eyewear to medical endoscopes to cell phone cameras to orbiting telescopes. When you finish this course, you will be able to design, to first order, such optical systems with simple mathematical and graphical techniques. This first order design will allow you to develop the foundation needed to begin all optical design as well as the intuition needed to quickly address the feasibility of complicated designs during brainstorming meetings. You will learn how to enter these designs into an industry-standard design tool, OpticStudio by Zemax, to analyze and improve performance with powerful automatic optimization methods

• Design first order optical systems using simple mathematical and graphical techniques
• Develop foundational understanding for optical design
• Analyze designs with OpticStudio software
• Improve optical system performance via automatic optimization methods
• Assess feasibility of complex designs during brainstorming

• Prior hands-on experience with core concepts covered in this course
• Comfort applying main tools or methods independently