Flowline Optical Simulation to Refractive/Reflective 3D Systems: Optical Path Length Correction
Publicated to:Photonics. 6 (4): - 2019-01-01 6(4), DOI: 10.3390/photonics6040101
Authors: Garcia-Botella, Angel; Jiang, Lun; Winston, Roland;
Affiliations
Abstract
Nonimaging optics is focused on the study of techniques to design optical systems for the purpose of energy transfer instead of image forming. The flowline optical design method, based on the definition of the geometrical flux vector J, is one of these techniques. The main advantage of the flowline method is its capability to visualize and estimate how radiant energy is transferred by the optical systems using the concepts of vector field theory, such as field line or flux tube, which overcomes traditional raytrace methods. The main objective this paper is to extend the flowline method to analyze and design real 3D concentration and illumination systems by the development of new simulation techniques. In this paper, analyzed real 3D refractive and reflective systems using the flowline vector potential method. A new constant term of optical path length is introduced, similar and comparable to the gauge invariant, which produces a correction to enable the agreement between raytrace- and flowline-based computations. This new optical simulation methodology provides traditional raytrace results, such as irradiance maps, but opens new perspectives to obtaining higher precision with lower computation time. It can also provide new information for the vector field maps of 3D refractive/reflective systems.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Photonics due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2019, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Instrumentation.
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 1.19, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-08, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 3
- Scopus: 6
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (GARCIA BOTELLA, ANGEL) .