Spherical aberration correction and fabrication tolerances in geodesic lenses.

This paper describes a theoretical design of an integrated optical geodesic lens using a noncircular overlay to correct spherical aberrations. The corrected lens design can achieve diffraction-limited performance for an on-axis beam with an aperture equal to 90% of the lens diameter. The paper also contains an analysis of the tolerances, which must be met during the fabrication of such a lens to maintain a diffraction-limited spot and prescribed focal length. This analysis showed that the most sensitive parameter is the thickness of the overlay.