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Wide, nonperiodic stepped phase structures are studied to correct various parameter-dependent wave-front aberrations in optical systems. The wide nature of these phase structures makes them easy to manufacture with sufficient compensation of the wave-front aberrations. Wave-front aberration correction for both continuous and discrete parameter variations are studied. An analytical method is derived for the discrete parameter variations to find the optimal phase structure. Both theoretical and experimental results show that these nonperiodic phase structures can be used to make (1) lenses athermal (defocus and spherical aberration compensated), (2) lenses achromatic, (3) lenses with a large field of view, (4) lenses with a reduced field curvature, and (5) digital versatile disk objective lenses for optical recording that are compatible with compact disk readout. OCIS codes: 220.1000, 220.4830, 050.1940, 210.4770.

The domain integral equation method for anisotropic inhomogeneous dielectric waveguides is derived, and the spectral properties of the integral operator are discussed. It is explained why spurious modes do not occur when the Galerkin method is applied to the domain integral equation. Furthermore, the convergence of the method is discussed.