Smartphone Camera Lens Design: A Patent Study

I dissected a recently issued patent for a 6-element smartphone camera lens. As much was learned about mobile phone cameras in general as about the patent itself.

I always find some kind of typo. There is one at 3:28. The "r" in the sag equation is actually a "y".

OpticStudio is a product of Zemax (www.zemax.com)

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This video took over a month to research and produce. It sent me deep into the literature. Here are the sources that I consulted in order to make this video:

1. The patent reference is:
Chen, Chun-Shan, Tsung-Han Tsai, and Ming-Ta Chou. "Optical image lens system." U.S. Patent No. 11,561,375. Jan. 24, 2023.

2. A very detailed overview of the issues involved in designing mobile phone lenses:
Blahnik, Vladan, and Oliver Schindelbeck. "Smartphone imaging technology and its applications." Advanced Optical Technologies 10.3 (2021): 145-232.

3. Integration of a lens with the focal plane array sensor is done while considering both the optical resolution and the detector resolution, as described in:
Kasunic, Keith J. Optical systems engineering. McGraw-Hill Education, 2011.

4. He included a bite-sized chapter on miniature lens design. Wow! A must-read:
Sasián, José. Introduction to lens design. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

5. The subtle matter of how the aspheric lenses influence Petzval curvature even though the aspheric surfaces don't was discussed on his blog:
Kats Ikeda, https://www.pencilofrays.com/lens-des...

6. For OpticStudio users, there is a really good tutorial on the Zemax Knowledgebase that takes you through the set-up and some of the analysis of a mobile phone lens:
https://support.zemax.com/hc/en-us/ar...

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Photo credits (in order of appearance):
1. H. Raab (User:Vesta), CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
2. By Filya1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
3. Photo by Colin M.L. Burnett CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
4. Photo by Colin M.L. Burnett CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

Optical Design Playlist:    • Optics and Optical Design  

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