Introduction to optical components
Optical components are meticulously crafted from semi-transparent materials and serve the purpose of transmitting or reflecting light. Transmissive optical components encompass lenses, beamsplitters, windows, optical flats, prisms, wave plates, and fiber optics. Reflective components include mirrors and retroreflectors.
Application areas of optical components
The effectiveness of each optical component hinges on the substrate and coating employed, as well as its form and finish. Shanghai Optics stands out as a premier manufacturer of custom optical components, delivering top-tier optical elements crafted from diverse substrates. These optics find application across various domains such as microscopy, medical lasers, imaging, surveying, interferometry, satellite technology, and data transfer. Our facilities boast cutting-edge equipment to produce precision optics, with rigorous quality assurance measures in place to ensure compliance with all pertinent standards.
Lenses: Light-Focusing Optical Tools
Singlet lenses, made from a single piece of optical material, come in various shapes and sizes including planoconvex, biconvex, planoconcave, biconcave, and meniscus. The optimal shape, known as the best-form lens, minimizes spherical aberration and is determined by factors such as the system’s conjugate ratio and the lens material’s refractive index.
Symmetric biconvex lenses are ideal for unit magnification imaging, where object distance equals image distance, effectively canceling out coma, distortion, and lateral chromatic aberration. BK7 or Fused Silica are common materials for manufacturing singlet lenses, chosen based on the required wavelength.
Monolithic lenses are typically manufactured from BK7 or fused silica, depending on the desired wavelength.
We also offer multi-element lenses. Dichromatic lenses are the best choice for on-axis focusing because they reduce spherical aberration while providing color correction. Using a dichromatic lens will also result in a smaller focal spot than when using a monochromatic lens.
Differences About Lenses
A lens is an optical component that focuses or disperses light. Lenses can be divided into two broad categories based on their shape and purpose: convex lenses and concave lenses. In this article, we will discuss the differences in lenses in detail, including their construction, optical properties, and applications.
1. Structure and classification of lenses
Convex lens
A convex lens is a lens that focuses light toward the optical center, and its surfaces on both sides are spherically convex. According to the curvature of convex lenses, they can be divided into small convex lenses and large convex lenses. Small convex lenses are usually used to magnify objects, while large convex lenses are commonly used in optical equipment such as cameras and projectors.
Concave lens
A concave lens is a lens that diverges toward the optical center and has spherical concave surfaces on both sides. Contrary to convex lenses, concave lenses disperse light, making objects appear smaller. Concave lenses are widely used in optical equipment such as glasses and telescopes.
2. Optical properties of lenses
Focal length
The focal length of a lens refers to the distance at which light is focused after passing through the lens. The shorter the focal length of a convex lens, the stronger the focusing ability; the longer the focal length of a concave lens, the stronger the defocusing ability.
Aperture
The aperture of a lens is the circular opening that controls the entry of light into the lens. The size of the aperture can be adjusted to change the amount of light entering the lens and the imaging effect.
Imaging
A lens can focus light from an object to another location, forming a real or virtual image.
When a convex lens forms an image, there is a certain relationship between the object distance, image distance and focal length; when a concave lens forms an image, there is also a certain relationship between the object distance, image distance and focal length.
Among them, we also have different classifications of products: Lenses, Prisms, Optical Windows, Optical Mirrors, Optical filters.
We will have articles to explain the remaining categories in detail later. If you are interested in our products, you can contact us directly for more information.