Plano-Convex 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-concave rectangular cylindrical lenses provide uni- axial negative imaging for anamorphic beam expansion and a wide range of applications.These lenses may also be used as mirror blanks if a concave cylindrical surface mirror is required.

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.

Germanium (Ge) is the preferred lens and window material for high performance infrared imaging systems in the 8–12 um wavelength band.

The Yttrium Orthovanadate (YVO4) is a positive uniaxial crystal grown with Czochralski method. It has good temperature stability and physical and mechanical properties. It is ideal for optical polarizing components because of its wide transparency range and large birefringence. It is an excellent synthetic substitute for Calcite (CaCO3) and Rutile (TiO2) crystals in many applications including fiber optic isolators and circulators, interleavers, beam displacers and other polarizing optics.

Optical domes are lenses with two concentric spherical surfaces. Sometimes they are being referred to as bent plan parallel plates. Consequently it is customary to define parallelism between two surfaces as the maximum thickness variation between the two surfaces.

Colored glass filters are optical components that control incident wavelength by distributing an optical absorbing substance in glass.

Co2+:MgAl2O4 Cospinel is a relatively new material for passive Q-switching in lasers emitting from 1.2 to 1.6 μm, in particular, for eye-safe 1.54 μm Er:glass laser, but also works at 1.44 μm and 1.34 μm wavelengths. Spinel is a hard, stable crystal that polishes well. Cobalt substitutes readily for magnesium in the Spinel host without the need for additional charge compensation ions. High absorption cross section (3.5×10-19 cm2) permits Q-switching of Er:glass laser without intracavity focusing both with flash-lamp and diode-laser pumping. Negligible excited-state absorption results in high contrast of Q-switch, i.e. the ratio of initial (small signal) to saturated absorption is higher than 10.