Compact High Resolution Wide Field of View IR objective operating in (8 - 12 µm) Spectral Band for Different Observation Applications

among the various components of Infrared imaging system; IR objective is the first essential component of the IR imaging chain that can affect the overall performance of the IR imaging systems. In this paper, a proposed structure and detailed design of a high resolution wide field of view IR objective operating in the spectral band 8-12 µm using ZEMAX software is presented. The objective design constrains, procedures, optimization and the related Figure of merits are introduced and discussed. The objective Root Mean Square RMS radius curve and average modulation transfer function (AMTF) were measured in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed IR objective, the results showed high performance in terms of RMS radius curve and AMTF. The RMS radius is centered on a detector pixel pitch of 17 µm with a high AMTF value of 0.5 at the spatial frequency resolution boundary (Nyquist frequency) of 29.4 cycle/millimeter. The compact design and the high performance of the proposed objective make it a good candidate for different observation applications. Compact construction of the proposed objective also makes it suitable for different civilian applications.