In
optics, a 'thin lens' is a
lens with a thickness (distance along the
optical axis between the two surfaces of the lens) that is negligible compared to the
focal length of the lens. Lenses whose thickness is not negligible are sometimes called ''thick lenses''.
The 'thin lens approximation' ignores optical effects due to the thickness of lenses and simplifies
ray tracing calculations. It is often combined with the
paraxial approximation in techniques such as
ray transfer matrix analysis.
For a thin lens, in the paraxial ray approximation, the object (
) and image (
) distances are related by the equation
:
where
is the focal length of the lens.
External links
★
FORTRAN code for solving thin lens equation