Custom Ball and Half Ball Lenses

Spherical lenses are completely spherical and are most often used to improve the coupling of light into and out of optical fibers, detectors, and transmitters. In LED displays and LED traffic signals, hemispherical lenses, which offer uniform light scattering, are frequently employed. Due to their compact size, ease of positioning and alignment due to perfect rotational symmetry, and relatively low cost, spherical and hemispherical lenses are essential components in a wide range of applications.

Alfa Chemistry can provide the custom ball and hemisphere lenses manufactured specifically for each customer and their needs. Our highly skilled professionals test each product in our state-of-the-art metrology lab to ensure it meets standards. For more information on your custom achromatic lens needs, please contact our technical sales team.

Our Capabilities

To fulfill customers' requirements, Alfa Chemistry provides a variety of unique ball and half ball lense custom solutions. Our specialized services are offered in a variety of alternative materials that span from UV to IR applications. Micro-optics with a diameter of 0.13 mm to 150 mm are available from us. To guarantee that customers receive the specs they require, all of our ball and hemisphere lenses can be produced in a range of grades, from high precision grade 3 to commercial grade 100 ball lenses. Additionally, we provide uncoated and anti-reflective coating options as part of our ball and hemisphere lens customizing service.

Below are examples of our standard manufacturing capabilities.

Custom Materials

• Ultraviolet Fused Silica (UVFS): UVFS, the industry standard material for UV and visible light applications, transmits light well between 400 and 700 nm.
• Sapphire and Ruby: These two provide great durability and chemical stability for harsher settings, making them perfect substrates for spherical lenses. Sapphire is a suitable material for UV, VIS, and NIR applications due to its good transparency between 200 nm and 5 µm. At 650 nm, rubies offer strong transmittance and can be utilized for IR applications. Additionally, they have a high refractive index, which results in a more effective coupling.
• Materials for IR applications: Silicon, which transmits efficiently in the MWIR range of 3-5 µm, can be employed.
• Other materials are quartz, ceramic, cubic zirconia, spinel, etc.

Fig 1. Layout of the specially designed hybrid optics consisting of an aspheric lens, a diffractive optical element (DOE) and a half ball lens working as aplanatic solid immersion lens (ASIL). (Burmeister F, et al. 2012)

Alfa Chemistry is always looking to expand and work with customers to achieve their specifications, so please feel free to contact our technical sales team for more information and guidance on your enquiry.

Reference

1. Burmeister F, et al. (2012). "High Numerical Aperture Hybrid Optics for Two-Photon Polymerization." Optics Express. 20(7): 7994-8005.