Design of a Compact Monolithic Catadioptric Lens for CubeSat Hyperspectral Imaging Payloads
Monolithic catadioptric lenses have emerged as a novel class of compact long-focal-length lenses. Fabricated from a single fused silica substrate with distinct optical prescriptions across annular zones, these systems fold the optical path within the substrate, achieving long effective focal lengths at a fraction of the track length of refractive equivalents. The monolithic architecture and low coefficient of thermal expansion provide inherent athermal performance and preserve optical alignment under the thermal and vibrational loads of nanosatellite launch and orbital operation. Despite these advantages, commercial offerings of monolithic catadioptric lenses are limited and no comprehensive optical design literature review has been published for this lens class. We survey of monolithic catadioptric design variants, including Schmidt-Cassegrain-derived, annular folded, and gradient-index configurations. Building on this design space, we also present a novel monolithic catadioptric objective lens optimized for a CubeSat pushbroom hyperspectral Earth imaging payload. Pushbroom hyperspectral imagers require a precision entrance slit at the focal plane of the objective lens, and maintaining slit-to-focal-plane alignment under launch shock and thermal cycling is a significant optomechanical challenge. The proposed design places the focal plane coincident with the back surface of the substrate, enabling the slit to be lithographically etched directly onto that surface. This approach eliminates the slit-to-objective alignment degree of freedom, yielding an integrated, mechanically robust, and thermally stable objective-slit module for pushbroom imaging. We present the completed optical design of a near-diffraction-limited F/3 f=100mm VSWIR monolithic catadioptric lens, assess imaging performance, and discuss preliminary fabrication and tolerancing considerations.