Jacob A. Sacks | 2026 Awardee

Jacob’s research is Semi-Automated Zoom Lens Design using Aberration Analysis.

He writes that, since their inception in the late 1800s, zoom lenses have become central to many imaging tasks in consumer photography, defense, medical imaging, microscopy, and astronomy. The zoom lens design process has evolved significantly with improvements in optical design software. What used to be a methodical, theory-based design process has largely been replaced by techniques relying on the speed of modern computers to trace many rays and run advanced optimization algorithms and computational design. Currently, less experienced designers often rely on these modern tools to substitute for a lack of theoretical knowledge. However, the modern tools often require theoretical knowledge to be used to their greatest effect. Further complicating this problem is that there is a lack of generalizable and useful aberration knowledge about zoom lenses in the literature, meaning only the most experienced designers have a broad and general understanding of zoom lens aberrations. There are two primary goals of my research. The first is to use zoom lens aberration theory to improve computational design tools. The second is to then use computational design and analysis tools to expand our theoretical understanding of aberration balancing in zoom lenses in a way that lens designer may find useful and generalizable. Together, these advancements will equip optical designers to design zoom lenses much more efficiently, and to develop a better understanding of how zoom lenses work at the aberration level.