Iterative freeform lens design for prescribed irradiance on curved target

Abstract

Current freeform illumination optical designs are mostly focused on producing prescribed irradiance distributions on planar targets. Here, we aim to design freeform optics that could generate a desired illumination on a curved target from a point source, which is still a challenge. We reduce the difficulties that arise from the curved target by involving its varying z-coordinates in the iterative wavefront tailoring (IWT) procedure. The new IWT-based method is developed under the stereographic coordinate system with a special mesh transformation of the source domain, which is suitable for light sources with light emissions in semi space such as LED sources. The first example demonstrates that a rectangular flat-top illumination can be generated on an undulating surface by a spherical-freeform lens for a Lambertian source. The second example shows that our method is also applicable for producing a non-uniform irradiance distribution in a circular region of the undulating surface.

Keywords

• freeform optics
• prescribed irradiance distribution
• curved target
• iterative wavefront tailoring