Back to results
US 2004/0001201 A1Published application
Optical system with variable dispersion
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorDavid J. Knapp
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorDavid J. Knapp
Estimating the term…
An optical system (20) provides a variable dispersion that helps to collect multi-spectral information on an object within the field of view. The system (20) includes at least two sets (24, 26) of optical elements (42x 42y, 44x, 44y) that have minimal deviation of a center wavelength and a non-zero deviation of at least one other wavelength. By rotating the sets of optical elements (24, 26) relative to one another or together, the degree of wavelength dispersion and the direction of the wavelength dispersion can be varied, respectively. By selectively rotating the sets of optical elements, the system also can be operated in a non-dispersed “white light” mode with no net dispersion at the image plane.
An optical system capable of variably dispersing incident electromagnetic energy, comprising at least two optical elements spaced apart a fixed distance, whereby rotation of one or more of the optical elements relative to one or more of the other optical elements changes the degree of dispersion, and rotation of all of the optical elements together in a common direction changes the orientation of the dispersion.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.