García-Botella Angel
Departamento Física Aplicada a los Recursos Naturales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Montes, Madrid, Spain.
Appl Opt. 2011 Oct 1;50(28):5357-60. doi: 10.1364/AO.50.005357.
The concept of the vector flux field was first introduced as a photometrical theory and later developed in the field of nonimaging optics; it has provided new perspectives in the design of concentrators, overcoming standard ray tracing techniques. The flux field method has shown that reflective concentrators with the geometry of the field lines achieve the theoretical limit of concentration. In this paper we study the role of surfaces orthogonal to the field vector J. For rotationally symmetric systems J is orthogonal to its curl, and then a family of surfaces orthogonal to the lines of J exists, which can be called the family of surfaces of constant pseudopotential. Using the concept of the flux tube, it is possible to demonstrate that refractive concentrators with the shape of these pseudopotential surfaces achieve the theoretical limit of concentration.
