Reconstruction of optical characteristics of waveguide lenses by the use of ray tracing

A method that uses the data of ray tracing for optical waveguide lens diagnostics is described. This method permits a direct reconstruction of the optical characteristics of a waveguide without the optical or the physical thickness being measured. Conditions are determined for the mathematical problem of diagnostics by ray tracing to have a unique solution, and a technique to obtain a numerical solution from noisy experimental data is described. © 1994 Optical Society of America.