High performance Czerny–Turner imaging spectrometer with aberrations corrected by tilted lenses

The design of the high performance imaging spectrometer using low-cost plane grating is researched in this paper. In order to correct the aberrations well, under the guidance of the vector aberration theory, the modification of Czerny–Turner system with inserted tilt lenses is proposed. The novel design of a short-wave infrared imaging spectrometer working at between wavelengths of 1–2.5 μm is shown as an example, whose numerical aperture achieves 0.15 in image space. The aberrations are corrected well and the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) performance is the same as the convex gratings systems. The smiles and keystones of the spectral image are acceptable. Advantages of the proposed design with a plane grating are obviously that the diffraction efficiency is high while the cost is very low.