Effects of striae inside optical glasses on optical systems

Optical glasses with certain inner quality e.g. low striae content are essential for good optical systems. A stria is a small local change in the refractive index inside the glass due to small local changes of the glass composition. A stria results in a wave front distortion that can cause a blurring of the image. The effect of striae inside optical glasses on different optical systems are simulated in order to value its significance. Such striae simulations turned out to be difficult and bringing the design software to its limits. Some pitfalls are discussed leading to criteria for trustworthy (reliable) simulation results. These criteria are shown and finally reliable simulation results for an eye piece used in a microscope are shown. Furthermore the results obtained in this publication lead to additional work on striae simulations.