Waveplate

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.

KDP Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate and KD*P or DKDP Potassium Dideuterium Phosphate are among the most widely-used commercial NLO materials, characterized by good UV transmission, high damage threshold, and high birefringence, though their NLO coefficients are relatively low. They are usually used for doubling, tripling and quadrupling of a Nd:YAG laser under the room temperature. In addition, they are also excellent electro-optic crystals with high electro-optic coefficients, widely used as electro-optical modulators, such as Q-switches, Pockels Cells, etc.

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.

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.

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.

Penta Prisms are used to define right angles in optical systems. Penta Prisms, which provide right handed images,feature a ray deviation of 90°. Penta Prisms are five-sided prisms are unaffected by slight movements. HG OPTRONICS offers a variety of Penta Prisms for optimal performance in the Ultraviolet (UV), Visible, or Infrared (IR) spectrums.

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.

The Anamorphic prisms are used in pairs to magnify input beam size along one axis while leaving the other axis unchanged. The elliptical laser diode beams can be transferred into nearly circular.