LENS AXICONS - SYSTEMS COMPOSED OF A DIVERGING ABERRATED LENS AND A PERFECT CONVERGING LENS

A description is given of axicons obtained as a tandem of one divergin g lens that has third-order spherical aberration and one perfect conve rging lens. The asymptotic representation obtained with the help of th e nonuniform stationary phase method allows the determination of such principal features of the focal segment as the intensity distribution and the width of the central core along the optical axis. The obtained results are compared with the numerical evaluation of the correspondi ng diffraction integral. The analyzed system contains four special cas es: the doublet of both lenses, the setup of the perfect converging le ns placed in the front of the aberrated diverging lens, the setup of t he aberrated diverging lens placed in the primary focal plane of the p erfect converging lens, and the defocused Galilean telescope. A short discussion of the aberrated-lens bending factor as well as of choice o f the most convenient system geometry is also included. (C) 1998 Optic al Society of America.