Mechanical Passive Compensation for Athermalisation Design of Infrared Optical System

Optical equipments especially those for aerospace application are expected to work over a wide temperature range. The change of temperature could cause the refractive index change of infrared glass elements. Furthermore, it would lead to the defocus of the image surface and the performance degradation, so the method of temperature compensation must be adopted, which could make sure that optical system would adapt to the change of ambient temperature. A method of temperature compensation with mechanical passive compensation is briefly described, and an example is also given. The quality of image could be optimized through mechanical passive compensation,depending on the differences of metal and non-metallic thermal expansion coefficient. The results show that the optical system works stablely in the designed temperature range. It is of great importance to the athermalisation design of infrared optical system.