Plano-convex lens element

cylindricaloptical glassfused silica

A plano-convex cylindrical lens is used to condense light in one axis. A positive plano cylindrical lens is able to create a line image from a point of light, to change the aspect ratio of an image or to focus collimated input light to a line. Plano- convex cylindrical lenses are typically used for illumination of slit and line detector arrays, laser projection, laser line focussing and anamorphic beam shaping. Plano Convex Cylindrical Lens Descriptions The Plano spherical lens acts symmetrically on the incident light in both directions, while the convex cylindrical lens acts in only one direction on the incident light. A typical application is to shape a deformed beam with a pair of plano-convex cylindrical lenses. A pair of positive plano-convex cylindrical lenses can be used to collimate and round the output of the laser diode. Another possible application is to focus the diverging beam onto the detector array with a single plano-convex cylindrical lens. In order to minimize the spherical aberration, when the collimated beams are concentrated into one line, the collimated light should be incident on the curved surface of the lens, and when the quasi-linear source is used, the line source should be incident on the plane of the lens.