spherical aberration, in optics, a phenomenon in which the outer parts of a lens do not bring light rays into the same focus as the central part. Rays passing through the lens close to its centre are focused farther away than rays passing through a circular zone near its rim. Spherical aberration produces an image in which the centre of the field of view is in focus when the periphery may not be. It is a consequence of using a lens with a spherical (rather than a nonspherical, or an aspheric) surface. Images formed by the lens at large apertures are therefore unsharp but get sharper at smaller apertures.
For every cone of rays from an axial object point meeting the lens, there is a cone of rays that converges to form an image point, the cone being different in length according to the diameter of the circular zone. Wherever a plane at right angles to the optical axis is made to intersect a cone, the rays will form a circular cross section. The area of the cross section varies with distance along the optical axis. The smallest area is known as the circle of least confusion. The image most free of spherical aberration is found at this distance.
Spherical aberration is corrected by inserting other optical elements. For example, in the Cassegrain reflecting telescope, spherical aberration may be entirely corrected by making the large concave mirror paraboloidal and the small convex mirror hyperboloidal.