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Ball lenses are highly polished spheres made of optically transparent homogeneous materials. Carefully controlled manufacturing process produces spheres with precise diameters and unsurpassed surface quality. Numerical aperture of ball lenses is proportional to their refractive index. These lenses are used in visible and near infrared spectrum. The ball lenses could be equatorially ground relative to direction of optical axis to facilitate packaging and orient AR coating. The round cross-section of these lenses results in the large field of view and simple, cost-effective alignment where most of the positioning errors result in simple focusing errors.
These lenses can be used as fiber-optics collimators. In order to accommodate different fiber-arrays pitch, the edge of the lens may be ground to a desired width.
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Ball Lenses
Ball lenses are used for various tasks such as improving the coupling between optical fibers and the emitters or detectors they interface with. Standard size lenses range from 1.0mm to 5.0mm. Custom-made sizes or special materials are also available. All Ball Lenses can be ordered with full-surface anti-reflection (AR) coating..
The effective focal length of a ball lens is given by the following formula:
BFL = F – D/2 and EFL = nD/4(n-1)
The Numerical Aperture, NA, of a ball lens is dependent on the focal length of the ball and on the input diameter, d.
NA = 2d(n-1)/nD
Specifications
Material: BK7 grade A optical glass
Diameter tolerance: ±0.005mm
Sphericity: ±0.003mm
Surface Quality: 40/20
Coating: none
Drum Lenses
A Drum Lens is a variation of a ball lens where a portion of the ball is ground down to a smaller diameter. These lenses are used in similar applications to those of ball lenses. The drum lens adds the ability to handle and package it in a different way.
Specifications
Material: BK7 grade A optical glass
Diameter tolerance: +0.0/-0.05mm
Length: ±0.005mm
Surface Quality: 40/20
Coating: none
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To cope with the increasing demand of enviromental friendly optical glasses suitable for precision molding processes SCHOTT has extended its glass portfolio and has identified several low transformation temperature glasses that are suitable for precision molding.
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Cut-ball microlenses are made from ball lenses and are widely used in endoscopy and microscopic applications. When complemented with glass spacers of appropriate thickness, cut-ball microlenses become excellent fiber optic collimators.
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