Analysis of spherical and comatic aberrations in a pulse-dilation framing camera

Abstract A pulse-dilation framing camera is a two-dimensional ultrafast diagnostic tool that is used to research spatiotemporal evolution of plasmas through pinhole array images in inertial confinement fusion experiments. This imaging technique uses a pulse dilated with magnetic focusing imaging. Aberrations exist in the images due to the influence of long drift area and magnetic focusing on photoelectron motion. These aberrations were simulated and measured in this study in order to further understand aberrations in a pulse-dilation framing camera. The results show that the spherical and comatic aberrations primarily affect the imaging quality during imaging of camera. The spherical aberration produces diffuse spots and reduces the spatial resolution for any point on the object (i.e., regardless of whether or not it lies on the optical axis). Meanwhile comatic aberration especially obvious occurs for off-axis points on the object. These results raise an important question regarding the development of larger object planes and multiple frames of cameras that remains to be resolved.