Differentiable ray-wave method improves mixed optics simulation accuracy
DiffRayve: Differentiable Ray-Wave Method for Polarized and Unpolarized Diffractive-Refractive Optical Systems
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Summary
Simulating light in complex lenses that include bending, diffraction, and polarization effects is hard and slow. The authors introduce a new method that models both ray tracing and wave behavior together, allowing fast and accurate calculations. This method can also calculate gradients, which helps design better lenses with multiple diffractive elements. They tested their approach against known diffraction patterns and existing simulation methods to confirm its accuracy. One practical use they show is designing wide-angle lenses that reduce color blur.
What this means in practice
- •For optical engineers: Design advanced lenses combining diffraction and refraction with accurate polarization modeling and faster optimization processes.
- •For camera lens manufacturers: Create wide field-of-view achromatic lenses with multiple diffractive elements improved by gradient-based design enabled by this method.$Commercial implications: Enables production of higher-performing multi-element lenses with better color correction for photography and imaging devices.
Authors
Samuel Audia, Shrey Patel, Dinesh Manocha, Matthias Zwicker
Abstract
Current deep optics simulations struggle to balance high fidelity with computational efficiency, particularly for complex polarized and diffractive systems. To address this, we introduce a fully differentiable Shooting and Bouncing Ray (SBR) algorithm that simultaneously models geometric and physical optics fields. Unlike standard wave optics methods, our approach enables accurate, gradient-based optimization of polarized compound refractive-diffractive systems without the computational cost of full-wave simulations. We validate our method against analytical Fraunhofer diffraction patterns and state-of-the-art Fourier optics and wave optics methods. We showcase the practical utility of our differentiable engine through one application: designing a wide field-of-view achromatic lens with multiple Diffractive Optical Elements (DOEs).