The subject gives a detailed explanation of the principle of imaging of planar and spherical surfaces based on the laws of geometrical optics. It also deals with monochromatic and color aberrations and basic visual instruments.

• Light as electromagnetic radiation. Wavefronts and rays. Refraction index, optical path. Polarization.
• Fermat’s principle. Reflection and refraction at planar boundary. Total internal reflection. Plane mirror and mirror systems. Refraction prisms: types and applications.
• Crown and flint glass, dispersion, Abbe number. Dispersion prisms:types, applications.
• Spherical sourface and systems of sourfaces – image forming, ray tracing, principal planes. Focal length, magnification.
• Thin and thick lens: image forming, types. Graphical and mathematical ray tracing.
• Thin lens combinations, system focus. Afocal attachment.
• Lens abarrations: monochromatic, color. Corrections of aberrations.
• Reading glasses. Magnifying glass: resolving power, magnification, types.
• Microscope: optical layout, main characteristics, anatomy.
• Image recording with a microscope. Inverted and stereomicroscope.
• Illumination in microscopy. Abbe theory of image forming.
• Contrast enhancing techniques in microscopy.
• Lens telescopes: Galilean, Keplerian. Focusing mechanisms. Image erecting systems.

Problems related to the lecture content (calculations).
Laboratory tasks: Apex angle of a prism, Index of refraction and Abbe number, Focal length of a thick lens, Resolving power and optical aberrations

Dereniak E., Dereniak T.: Geometrical and Trigonometric Optics, Cambridge University Press, 2008
Recommended:
Kenyon I. R.: The Light Fantastic, Oxford University Press, 2008

Fermat's principle, prism, mirror, thin lens, thick lens, aberrations