This article was originally featured in our Tech Tips Tuesday series on LinkedIn, where we share technical know-how directly from our team of expert optical engineers and the Zemax Community.

Tech Tip Tuesdays with #Ansys Zemax: Designing Cell Phone Camera Lenses

Smartphones have become an important part of our everyday life and contain a host of high-tech optical systems to meet the demand for great imaging performance. Most smartphones have multiple complex and low-cost camera units fitted in a limited space. This presents a challenge to designers as well as to manufacturers. The injection-molded plastic lenses require an accurate alignment, but every module must work when mounted.

With OpticStudio, these sophisticated optical systems can be designed, optimized, and analyzed. In the Knowledge base article referenced below, a cell phone lens module was modified from a patent using real plastic materials and different polynomial definitions. The optical design consists of five extended aspheres. At the front there is a cover glass to protect the optics. At the back we can see an optional infrared filter. In the redesign Q-type aspheres are used instead of extended aspheres. OpticStudio provides a tool to easily convert between aspheric definitions. The lens system has been optimized to achieve a desired MTF and imaging performance. Additional criteria can be added to the merit function to control the manufacturability. OpticStudio has tools to control the surface sag, curvature, slope, among others. After redesigning and optimizing of the cell phone camera lens module, the MTF curve is very close the diffraction limit.

Want to learn more? Check out these additional resources!

Knowledge Base Article:

Designing Cell phone Camera Lenses Part 1: Optics

On Demand Webinars

Designing Cell phone Camera Lenses with an Interoperability Workflow – Part 1

Designing Cell phone Camera Lenses with an Interoperability Workflow – Part 2

Try Ansys Zemax optical design capabilities for yourself, request a free trial today.