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I want to use the  Zernike Standard phase ,export its  coefficients to Matlab (like the figue2 below  Z11=-11.059).and I use the  Zernike standard polynomial gived by User Guides,like figure3.

                                   figure1. All of Zernike cofficients in this surface type 0 except that Z11

figure 2. Norm Radius set 10

figure 3. Definition(Zernike Standard Coefficients)

So, I privately believe that in Matlab the phase expression is 

and, Z11 =-11.059

and I plot the phase and compare  the phase copied from phase cross Section  with the the phase expression based on Matlab (the curve are Normalized).the result is below Fig4

Obviously, They have different shapes,and the superposition of two Zernike coefficients is even more different.

figure 4. phase cross Section(blue line)and Expression(red line)

So!please~ I want to know how to use the formulas to correctly express the Zernike phase of Zemax, because I need to calculate the light field based on this phase distribution using MATLAB.

Thank you very much!!!

Hi Haining,

My first guess is the Norm Radius is not correctly implemented in your Matlab code.  The Normalized Radius is a unitless (r/R) value that can be multiplied by each coefficient to help in optimizing (if the semi-diameter changes due to lack of Circular Apertures) or thermal analysis.  It’s recommended to set the Normalization Radius to the size of the Semi-Diameter so the coefficient doesn’t lose floating-point precision, but if you want to compare coefficients directly to an equation, it’s often more useful to set the Norm Radius to 1.0.  This means the coefficients themselves are not scaled.

If this doesn’t work, can you please upload a ZAR of your system so someone can further look into the differences.  


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