Ball lens element

BK7infrared

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.