Spherical gradient-index polymer lens with low spherical aberration.

A sphere lens with a spherical gradient index (GRIN) was prepared by the modified suspension polymerization technique. GRIN spheres with quadratic- and linear-index distributions were obtained by two different methods to confirm the effect of the GRIN profile on the focusing property of the sphere lens. It was confirmed in both theory and experiment that the spherical aberration of such GRIN spheres was remarkably decreased compared with that of a homogeneous sphere.