Precision aspheric lenses are computer-optimized to achieve diffraction limited optical performance over high numerical apertures without requiring multiple elements. This may be used to reduce weight, complexity and cost for optical systems.
In applications that require large acceptance angles, such as light gathering for illumination, spherical lenses are unsuitable due to spherical aberration, or the effect of refractive power of a spherical surface becoming greater with increasing aperture. Aspheric lenses maintain constant focal length or very high NA, avoiding the need for multiple elements to correct spherical aberration. This simplifies system design by reducing weight and component count. It also results in less transmission loss, and less ghosting due to having fewer surfaces. The primary drawback of aspheric lenses is off-axis performance is poor. This is not a problem for coupling to and from optical fibers or collimating light sources, but aspheric lenses are not usable over a wide field of view.
Our Precision Aspheric Lenses have diffraction limited performance on axis, and are available in a range of high numerical apertures. They are ideal for applications such as coupling light into and out of optical fibers, efficiently collecting output from optical sources, or focusing beams onto small high speed detectors.
Our AR.14 broadband multilayer antireflection coating markedly improves the transmission efficiency of these lenses by reducing surface reflections over a 430-700 nm wavelength range. This AR coating performs effectively for multiple visible wavelengths and tunable lasers eliminating the need for several sets of optics.
Our AR.16 multilayer anti-reflection coating is recommended for NIR applications in the 650-1000 nm range.