
76 Molded Optics: Design and Manufacture
© 2011 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
order count. As will be discussed in Section 3.4.1.1, it’s possible for a stray
light path to have zero order (direct illumination of the detector). In most
systems, any path of order greater than two does not usually produce a sig-
nicant amount of light on the focal plane, since the magnitude of this light
usually varies as the nth power, where n is the order.
3.2.2 Specular and Scattered Stray Light Mechanisms
Stray light mechanisms generally fall into one of two categories: specular or
scatter. The difference between the two is that light from a specular mech