Optica is an
optical design
Optical lens design is the process of designing a lens to meet a set of performance requirements and constraints, including cost and manufacturing limitations. Parameters include surface profile types ( spherical, aspheric, holographic, diffra ...
program used for the design and analysis of both imaging and illumination systems. It works by
ray tracing the propagation of
rays through an optical system. It performs polarization ray-tracing, non-sequential ray-tracing, energy calculations, and optimization of optical systems in three-dimensional space. It also performs symbolic modeling of optical systems,
diffraction,
interference, wave-front, and Gaussian beam propagation calculations. In addition to conducting simulations of optical designs, Optica is used by scientists to create illustrations of the simulated results in publications. Some examples of Optica being used in simulations and illustrations include
holography
Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
,
x-ray optics X-ray optics is the branch of optics that manipulates X-rays instead of visible light. It deals with focusing and other ways of manipulating the X-ray beams for research techniques such as X-ray crystallography, X-ray fluorescence, small-angle X-r ...
,
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where th ...
s,
Cerenkov radiation, microwave optics,
nonlinear optics
Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typic ...
,
scattering
Scattering is a term used in physics to describe a wide range of physical processes where moving particles or radiation of some form, such as light or sound, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by localized non-uniformities (including ...
, camera design,
extreme ultraviolet lithography
Extreme ultraviolet lithography (also known as EUV or EUVL) is an optical Photolithography, lithography technology used in steppers, machines that make integrated circuits (ICs) for computers and other electronic devices. It uses a range of extreme ...
simulations,
telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...
optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultra ...
,
laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...
design,
ultrashort pulse lasers, eye models,
solar concentrators and Ring Imaging CHerenkov (RICH) particle detectors.
History
Optica was originally developed by Donald Barnhart of
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. As of the 2010 United States Census, Urbana is the 38th-most populous municipality in Illinois. It ...
, USA, and has been in continual development since 1994.
Wolfram Research
Wolfram Research, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational company that creates computational technology. Wolfram's flagship product is the technical computing program Wolfram Mathematica, first released on June 23, 1988. Other products include ...
first sold the original version as a
Mathematica
Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimi ...
application.
"ScientificWeb"
/ref> From 2005 to 2009, Optica Software was sold by iCyt Mission Technology Inc, Champaign, Illinois (renamed Sony Biotechnology Inc in 2010). At iCyt, Optica2 was renamed as Rayica, and Wavica and LensLab were also developed. Later Rayica-Wavica was combined and named back to Optica3. Since 2009, Optica Software has been a subsidiary of Barnhart Optical Research LLC.
References
{{reflist, 30em
External links
Optica Software Website
Wolfram Research Optics Page
Wolfram Research Optica3
Optical software
Physics software