Polyimide membranes have excellent physiochemical properties which make them valuable materials for optical area. However, common aromatic polyimide membrane trend to show low transmittance in visible region because of the charge-transfer complex (CTC) in molecular structures. Moreover, it’s trending to show high moisture uptakes because of the hydrophilic imide rings in molecular structure. In this work, a polyimide composite membrane with SiO₂ antireflective membrane on both sides was prepared. High transmittance (93% within 500~800 nm) and surface hydrophobicity was realized simultaneously. The polyimide composite membrane showed great optical homogeneity. The SiO₂ antireflective membranes on polyimide substrate were prepared through a simple and efficient sol-gel method. The surface roughness of polyimide membrane substrate on each side has been improved to 1.56 nm and 3.14 nm, respectively. Moreover, the excellent thermal stability and mechanical property of polyimide membrane has been preserved, which greatly improves the range of applications for the composite membrane. It is a good candidate for light weight optical system.

The increasing resolution requirements of imaging optical systems must be satisfied by expanding the aperture of the optical system according to Rayleigh’s criterion, and larger apertures of conventional refractive/reflective optics place a greater demand on manufacturing and transportation. Diffractive optics are applied to imaging optics to achieve lightweight design, but the image quality suffers due to their strong negative properties. Therefore, a wide-band imaging system based on the Schupmann achromatic model is proposed in this paper to solve the above problem, and the achromatic performance of the system is guaranteed by the Schupmann achromatic model. The aperture of the relay lens is reduced, since using harmonic diffractive optics as the primary lens results in a much more compact focus compared to the diffractive optics in the same wavelength band. This allows for the lightweight design of the optical system. An 80 mm aperture diffractive optical system covering the 400–900 nm band was designed and fabricated to verify the above theory. The actual resolution of the optical system was 76.196 lp/mm, and the achromatic task was accomplished. The design and experimentation of the wide-band achromatic imaging optical system confirms that the proposed theory is correct, and lays the foundation for the further application of large aperture diffractive telescopes.

Micro lens-on-lens array (MLLA) is a novel 3D structure with unique optical properties that cannot be fabricated accurately and quickly by existing processing methods. In this paper, a new fabricating method of MLLAs with two focal lengths is proposed. By introducing the soft lithography technology, nano-imprint technology and mask alignment exposure technology, MLLAs with high precisions can be obtained. A MLLA is successfully fabricated with two focal lengths of 58 μm and 344 μm, and an experiment is carried out. The results show that the MLLA has excellent two-level focusing and imaging abilities. Furthermore, the fabricated profiles of the MLLA agree well with the designed profiles, and the morphology deviation of the MLLA is better than 2%, satisfying the application requirements. The results verify the feasibility and validity of the novel fabricating method. By adjusting mask patterns and processing parameters, MLLAs with both changeable sizes and focal lengths can be obtained.

Diffractive optical elements are gradually replacing some conventional optical elements and becoming a key component of optical systems due to their unique phase modulation function. However, the imaging performance will be reduced due to the fact that this single-sided microstructured lens still produces chromatic aberration. Therefore, the key issue for the application of diffractive optical elements in optical systems is the reduction of chromatic aberration, and diffractive lenses with double-sided microstructures are proposed as a solution. This research describes the design and analysis of a 70-mm-diameter, 296-mm-focal-length double-sided microstructured hybrid-order monolithic imaging diffractive lens operating in the mid-wave infrared region (3.7–4.7 μm). The design minimizes chromatic aberration by up to 30 times compared to a standard harmonic diffractive lens and improves the image performance of a single-lens optical system operating in the infrared range. Experiments indicate that this design is capable of achieving single-lens imaging with high sensitivity for optical systems with a measured NETD ≤ 50 mK. The analysis of the experiments yielded suggestions for future research.

In this study, a lightweight composite polyimide film optic with antireflective coating was prepared using an ion-beam-assisted reactive sputtering method. It exhibited high transmittance in visible (87%, 0.5~0.8 μm), short (86%, 1.8~2.7 μm) and middle (78%, 3.3~5.4 μm) wavelength infrared regions. Additionally, it also showed great optical homogeneity (0.006 λ in RMS and 0.034 λ in PV, λ = 632.8 nm) with smooth surfaces (RMS = 0.786 nm). The thermal stability of the polyimide film was also effectively maintained after the antireflective coating. At the same time, by utilizing the hydrophobic properties of coating materials (Ta₂O₅/SiO₂), the antireflective layer acted as an effective water barrier on the film surface to reduce the water absorption.

The aperture of space telescopes increases with their required resolution, and the transmission optical systems with long focal length and diffractive primary lens are becoming increasingly popular. In space, the changes in the pose of the primary lens relative to the rear lens group have a significant impact on the imaging performance of the telescope system. The measurement of the pose of the primary lens in real-time and with high-precision is one of the important techniques for a space telescope. In this paper, a high-precision real-time pose measurement method for the primary lens of a space telescope in orbit based on laser ranging is proposed, and a verification system is established. The pose change of the telescope’s primary lens can be easily calculated through six high-precision laser distance changes. The measurement system can be installed freely, which solves the problems of complex system structure and low measurement accuracy in traditional pose measurement techniques. Analysis and experiments show that this method can accurately obtain the pose of the primary lens in real-time. The rotation error of the measurement system is 2 × 10⁻⁵ degrees (0.072 arcsecs), and the translation error is 0.2 μm. This study will provide a scientific basis for high-quality imaging of a space telescope.