A design method for direct vision coaxial linear dispersion spectrometers

Abstract

A spectrometer design method based on the prism-prism-grating (PPG) dispersion module is proposed in this paper to correct the serious nonlinear dispersion that prism and grating spectrometers and other dispersive spectrometers suffer from. First, we determine the criteria for selecting the optical materials of the PPG module by analyzing the dispersion characteristics of prisms and gratings. Second, a loop traversal algorithm is used to optimize the system structure parameters after selecting optical materials. Next, the direct vision coaxial condition of the PPG module is derived according to basic optical principles and the geometrical relationship between optical elements. Then, the dispersion equation of the PPG module is used to establish the spectral linearity index of the system. Finally, combined with the design index, the structural parameters of the PPG module to meet the linear dispersion requirements are determined. A direct vision coaxial linear dispersion spectrometer is designed and realized under the condition that the working band is 400-990 nm, the deviation angle and offset of the emitted ray with a central wavelength of 695 nm with respect to the optical axis are 0, and the dispersion angle is not less than 15°. The results simulated by ZEMAX show that the actual simulation results are consistent with the theoretical calculation results, the spectral resolution of the spectrometer is less than 1.5 nm, and the spectral smile and keystone are less than 3.89% pixels. In the discussion section, the influences of the dispersion ability of optical materials and the incident angles of prisms and gratings on the spectral dispersion linearity of the PPG module are analyzed and studied. The universality of the spectrometer design method developed in this paper is discussed, and its universality is simulated and verified in the 1000-1600 nm and 1600-2200 nm bands. In addition, some advantages compared with other dispersion structures are analyzed.