Plano-Concave Rectangular Cylindrical Lenses

A cylindrical lens is a lens that focuses light on a line instead of a point, like a spherical lens. The curved face or faces of a cylindrical lens are sections of a cylinder, and focus the image passing through it into a line parallel to the intersection of the surface of the lens and a plane tangent to it. The lens compresses the image in the direction perpendicular to this line and leaves it unaltered in the direction parallel to it (in the tangent plane). In a light sheet microscope, a cylindrical lens is placed in front of the illumination objective to create the light sheet used for imaging. Cylindrical lenses focus or expand light in one axis only. They can be used to focus light into a thin line in optical metrology, laser scanning, spectroscopic, laser diode, acousto-optic, and optical processor applications. They can also be used to expand the output of a laser diode into a symmetrical beam. Cylindrical lenses are widely used in telecom applications like WSS, 40G/100G modules and laser applications like pump laser modules

Plano-convex circular cylindrical lenses are useful for line imaging or uni-axial magnification in a wide range of applications. These lenses may be combined with other lenses to form complex imaging systems.

Plano-convex rectangular cylindrical lenses are useful for line imaging or uni-axial magnification in a wide range of applications. These lenses may be combined with other lenses to form complex imaging systems.

Ti:Sapphire crystal is the most widely used tunable solid-state laser material combining the supreme physical and optical properties with the extremely broad lasing range. Its lasing bandwidth can support pulses < 10fs making it the crystal of choice for femtosecond mode-locked oscillators and amplifiers. The absorption band of Ti:Sapphire centers at ~ 490 nm so it may be conveniently pumped by various laser sources such as argon ion lasers or frequency doubled Nd:YAG, Nd:YLF, Nd:YVO4 lasers at ~530nm. Laser designers are using Ti:sapphire to generate femtosecond pulses to create new industrial tools. A properly delivered femtosecond laser pulse interacts within the target leaving the surrounding area undisturbed. Newly developed femtosecond pulsed lasers micro-machine complex fine structures in glass, metal and other materials. Active waveguides can be written below the surface, integrating optical devices within the body of a substrate. Defects in photomasks can be repaired without disturbing neighbouring patterns. And it is now possible to achieve cellular resolution in vivo for medical diagnosis with femtosecond pulse lasers.

Cr4+:YAG (Y3Al5O12) crystal is ideal for passive Q-switch operation of Nd:YAG and other Nd3+ or Yb3+ doped laser crystals in the wavelength range of 900 nm to 1200 nm. Passive Q-switches or saturable absorbers provide high power laser pulses without electro-optic Q-switches, thereby reducing the package size and eliminating a high voltage power supply. A remarkable feature of Cr4+:YAG is the high damage threshold of >10 J/cm2@1064 nm, 10 ns. Its absorption band extends from 900 nm to 1200 nm and peaks around 1060 nm with a very large absorption cross-section.

Silicon is used as an optical window primarily in the 3 to 5 micron band and as a subsrate for production of optical filters and windows.     Silicon (Si) is grown by Czochralski pulling techniques (CZ) and contains some oxygen that causes an absorption band at 9 microns. To avoid this, material can be prepared by a Float-Zone (FZ) process. Optical silicon is generally lightly doped (5 to 40 ohm cm) for best transmission above 10 microns, and doping is usually boron (P-type) and phosphorus (N-type). After doping silicon has a further pass band: 30 to 100 microns which is effective only in very high resistivity uncompensated material.    

α-BBO (α-BaB2O4) is a negative uniaxial crystal which has large birefringence over a broad transparent range of 190nm to 3500nm. α-BBO is an excellent crystal especially in UV and high power applications. The physical, chemical, thermal, and optical properties of alpha-BBO crystal are similar to those of Beta-BBO. However, there is no second order nonlinear effect in alpha-BBO crystal due to the centrosymmetry in its crystal structure and thus it has no use for second order nonlinear optical processes. Instead, alpha-BBO is widely used for fabrication of polarizers, polarizing beam displacers, phase retarders, birefringent plates, and time delay compensators especially those for UV and high power lasers.

The Positive Meniscus Lenses are a convex-concave lens, but it is thicker at the center than at the edges. They are felt polished and are used universally in the ophthalmic industry where convention dictates that lens power be specified in Diopters. The Negative Meniscus Lenses are a convex-concave lens, but it is thinner at the center than at the edges. Otherwise description is similar to Plano Concave lenses.