Basic Types of Custom Optical Lenses

Custom optical lenses play a crucial role in modern optical devices. They are used in various fields such as medical, communication, and industrial automation. Depending on the different application requirements, custom optical lenses can have multiple types. This article will introduce several common types of custom optical lenses and their characteristics to help you choose the right lens for specific needs.

Custom Optical Lenses: Characteristics and Applications of Plano-Concave Lenses

Plano-concave lenses are a common type of custom optical lenses, primarily used to diverge parallel light outward. Their focal length is negative, making them suitable for correcting optical aberrations such as spherical aberration, coma, and distortion in other lenses. Plano-concave lenses are typically used in applications requiring diffused light, such as projectors and laser devices.

ECOPTIK plano-concave lenses are usually made from K9 glass, boasting excellent optical performance. Additionally, these lenses feature an anti-reflective coating for the 400-700 nm wavelength range to enhance light transmittance. For specific application needs, we also offer plano-concave lenses made from UV-grade quartz, which exhibits excellent transmittance in the UV region and a low thermal expansion coefficient, meeting more specialized usage requirements.

Custom Optical Lenses: Advantages and Functions of Plano-Convex Lenses

Plano-convex lenses are ideal for focusing parallel light to a point and are widely used in laser focusing, imaging systems, and optical sensors. This type of custom optical lenses has a stable focal length and can provide nearly optimal design in both infinite and finite conjugate applications.

Custom Optical Lenses: Application Scenarios of Double-Convex Lenses

Double-convex lenses are another important type of custom optical lenses. With a positive focal length, they can effectively focus parallel light beams. Due to the equal curvature radii of their convex spherical surfaces on both sides, they perform remarkably well in applications where object and image distances are equal or approximately equal, significantly reducing spherical aberration and improving coma and distortion.

In many optical devices, double-convex lenses are commonly used in imaging systems and microscopes, where their minimized introduced aberration ensures high-quality imaging. Especially under conjugate ratios between 5:1 and 1:5, double-convex lenses better maintain imaging clarity, making them suitable for high-precision optical applications.

Custom Optical Lenses: Design Concepts of Cemented Achromatic Lenses

The cemented achromatic lenses is a custom optical lens made up of a positive lens with a low refractive index and a negative lens with a high refractive index. Optimized through computer design, it corrects for near-axis aberrations such as spherical aberration, coma, and chromatic aberration. When used for focusing collimated light, the convex lens or surface with a small radius of curvature is typically directed towards the collimated light source, whereas, during imaging, it must be directed towards the side with a longer object or image distance.

The color correction advantage of this lens finds extensive application in microscopes, camera lenses, and other precision optical devices. The use of cemented achromatic lenses effectively improves imaging quality, ensuring the clarity of images and the accuracy of colors.

Custom Optical Lenses: Characteristics of Meniscus Lenses

Meniscus lenses, also known as concave-convex lenses, can effectively reduce spherical aberration and produce the smallest focal point for collimated incident light. The custom optical design of lens is based on the relative curvature of its two surfaces and can be either positive or negative. A negative meniscus lens is thinner in the center than at the edges, whereas a positive meniscus lens is thicker in the center than at the edges. This characteristic makes meniscus lenses important in various optical systems, particularly in situations requiring adjustment of beam shape and direction.