Optical Design and Polarization Analysis for Full-Polarization Underwater Imaging Lens

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors demonstrate a wide-field-of-view oil-immersion lens tailored for deep-sea operations, which offers robust imaging performance and a extensive observation range. The system adopts circularly polarized light as the active illumination source instead of linearly polarized light, display minimal polarization effects and high detection accuracy. Some specific questions and comments are listed as following:

 

1. The hydrostatic pressure test only verifies short-term performance. Potential risks such as material deformation or optical parameter drift under long-term high-pressure environments are not discussed. It is recommended to address these risks and propose mitigation measures.
2. The error analysis is insufficient. Sources of discrepancies between simulations and experiments (e.g., simplified assumptions in the Zemax simulation model, differences between the water pressure testing environment and actual deep-sea conditions) are not enough explained. Please provide a detailed justification.
3. A detailed comparison with existing deep-sea imaging systems is lacking. Supplemental comparative experiments or references to data from similar studies should be added to highlight the advantages of the proposed system.
4. Figures 5-7 lack specific more condition labels, and Figure 10 does not specify the testing conditions. Ensure that comparative figures are aligned in format, size, and consistency.
5. Issues with the formatting of references need to be corrected.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article shows impressive results and can be published in the present form.

I would like to advice checking the text carefully to avoid the mistakes like the following.In the sentence “where Si represents the polarization state of the emitted laser beams, which are usually linearly polarized light or circularly polarized light, and So represents the polarization state of the received light beams; Mo is the Mueller matrix of the object surface, Ms is the Mueller matrix of the optical system, Min and Mout are the scattering matrices of the incident medium and the reflecting medium, respectively” should be “where S_i represents the polarization state of the emitted laser beams, which are usually linearly polarized light or circularly polarized light, and S_o represents the polarization state of the received light beams; M_o is the Mueller matrix of the object surface, M_s is the Mueller matrix of the optical system, M_in and M_out are the scattering matrices of the incident medium and the reflecting medium, respectively”.

The break in the lines 366 and 387 should be removed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is devoted to underwater polarization imaging and development of full-polarization 
underwater imaging lens. The authors provided the simulations of the lens behavior under various conditions and give the implementation of the optical design. However, there are some points that should be clarified before publishing of the paper:

1. I would recommend to check the quality of manuscript presentation. Please enlarge pictures, check the deciphering of abbreviations and look over the text for typos.
2. Have you considered using of adaptive optics tools for enhancing image quality in ? I suggest  you to check out these articles and add them in reference list: I. Galaktionov et al., "Focusing of a Laser Beam Passed through a Moderately Scattering Medium Using Phase-Only Spatial Light Modulator", Photonics 9(5), 296, 2022. doi: 10.3390/photonics9050296; Stefano Bonora et al. "Underwater imaging with adaptive optic", Proc. SPIE PC12899, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XXIII, PC1289904 (13 March 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3002526 . Moreover, I would like to find some information about analogues and implemented systems of similar devices. Please expand the Introduction part.
3. Could you predict the performance of the optical system with some misalignments of the elements. I mean 10 lenses can lead to dramatic signal reducing after passing through device.
4. About wavelength choice: maybe the use of higher wavelength can decrease scattering impact on the image quality. As I remember the best choice for such applications is 532-nm laser radiation 
5. In section 7 should be some information about patents? If not please erase this section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper can be accepted in present form