Optical Components

Achromats (67 suppliers)

Achromats consist of two or more elements, usually of crown and flint glass, that have been corrected for chromatic aberration with respect to two selected wavelengths. They are also known as achromatic lenses. This area includes micro achromats as well.

Aspheric Lenses (65 suppliers)

Aspheric lenses compensate for spherical aberration and are used primarily for their light gathering ability.

Ball Lenses (38 suppliers)

Ball lenses are used to provide short focal lengths for use with collimated light and are often used in fiber coupling applications.

Beam Steerers (9 suppliers)

Beam steerers are optical tools that allow the user to easily change a laser beam's optical axis height or direction.

Blackbody Sources (10 suppliers)

Blackbody sources are uniform, temperature stable sources of infrared radiation primarily for instrument calibration.

Calcite Polarizers (23 suppliers)

Calcite polarizers are crystals used to separate unpolarized light into two separate plane polarized beams.

Circular Polarizers (12 suppliers)

Circular polarizers block all photons rotating in one direction while allowing those rotating in the opposite direction to pass. They are assemblies that consist of a linear polarizer and a wave retarder, usually a quarter waveplate or half waveplate.

Circular Variable Filters (7 suppliers)

Circular variable filters are doughnut-shaped devices that allow narrow wavelengths from the electromagnetic spectrum to pass through circular substrates, known as segments, located on the units.

Color Filters (89 suppliers)

Color filters include a wide range of filter types that are distinguished by their specific color spectrums and wavelengths, as well as their Schott glass compositions.

Cylindrical Lenses (139 suppliers)

Cylindrical lens have at least one surface that is formed in the shape of a cylinder. Cylindrical lenses are used to correct astigmatism in the eye, and, in rangefinders, to produce astigmatism, stretching a point of light into a line. This area includes micro cylindrical lenses as well.

Depolarizers (11 suppliers)

Depolarizers obliterate the polarization of a polarized beam by reflecting the beam in all directions at right angles to its axis.

Diffraction Gratings (38 suppliers)

A diffraction grating uses a substrate with parallel grooves to disperse light into its spectra. Eschelles are included in this area.

Etalons (19 suppliers)

Etalons are two flat glass plates separated by a parallel spacer, with the inner surfaces of the plates coated with a partially reflecting layer.

Flat Mirrors (85 suppliers)

Flat mirrors are smooth, highly polished, flat surfaces, for reflecting light. The actual reflecting surface is usually a thin coating of silver or aluminum on glass.

Fresnel Lenses (22 suppliers)

Fresnel lenses resemble a planoconvex or planoconcave lens that is cut into narrow rings and flattened. If the steps are narrow, the surface of each step is generally made conical and not spherical.

Gradient Index Lenses (8 suppliers)

Gradient index (GRIN) lenses focus light through a precisely controlled radial variation of the lens material's index of refraction from the optical axis to the edge of the lens.

Hot Mirrors and Cold Mirrors (35 suppliers)

Hot mirrors and cold mirrors are Dichroic filters that have a sharp transition between rejecting and transmitting at the near-infrared-visible area of the spectrum.

Laser Mirrors (70 suppliers)

Laser mirrors are designed for high reflectance and durability at individual laser wavelength ranges.

Laser Mounts (14 suppliers)

Laser mounts are devices that keep a laser in position on an optical table.

Lens Holders (24 suppliers)

Lens holders are used to stabilize and maintain the position of all the optical components of a lens assembly.

Linear Polarizers (37 suppliers)

Linear polarizers transmit light waves along one axis and absorb them along the other. The transmitting and absorbing axes of linear polarization are oriented at 90 degrees to each other.

Long Pass Filters and Short Pass Filters (91 suppliers)

Long pass filters transmit a wide spectral band of long wavelength radiation while blocking short wavelength radiation. Short pass filters transmit a wide spectral band of short wavelength radiation and block long wave radiation.

Meniscus Lenses (31 suppliers)

Meniscus lenses are optical lenses that produce a smaller focal point and fewer aberrations than a standard plano-convex lens. They have one convex and one concave surface with each surface having its own radius or curvature.

Mirror Mounts (20 suppliers)

Mirror mounts are used to hold and support mirrors of all sizes and shapes.

Monochromators (34 suppliers)

Monochromators are optical subassemblies used to isolate narrow portions of a light spectrum. They accept polychromatic input from a lamp or laser, and outputs monochromatic light.

Neutral Density Filters (79 suppliers)

Neutral density filters are designed to reduce transmission evenly across a portion of the spectrum. They are slightly sensitive to angles but they are much more forgiving than interference filters.

Nonpolarizing Cube Beamsplitters (58 suppliers)

Nonpolarizing cube beamsplitters provide a true 50/50 split regardless of the incoming polarization. They consist of a pair of precision right-angle prisms carefully cemented or mounted together to minimize wavefront distortion.

Optical Apertures (27 suppliers)

Optical apertures and optical slits control the diameter of beams from light sources.

Optical Bandpass Filters (118 suppliers)

Optical bandpass filters are designed to transmit a specific waveband. They are composed of many thin layers of dielectric materials, which have differing refractive indices to produce constructive and destructive interference in the transmitted light.

Optical Breadboards (11 suppliers)

Optical breadboards are flat surfaces with regularly spaced threaded holes that can be placed on a table or workbench and used for precision mounting of optical components.

Optical Choppers and Optical Shutters (24 suppliers)

Optical choppers are mechanical or electronic devices that pass and then interrupt a beam of light for a known brief interval. Optical shutters are used to control the amount of time that a light sensitive material is exposed to radiation.

Optical Crystals (190 suppliers)

Optical crystals are transparent in different spectral regions, depending upon the crystal material.

Optical Diffusers (38 suppliers)

Optical diffusers scatter incident light, thereby reducing the sensitivity of a detection system to slight positional or angle changes in an incoming beam.

Optical Filters (324 suppliers)

Filters are used to attenuate light across a certain portion of the spectrum.

Optical Flats (52 suppliers)

Optical flats or test plates are polished surfaces that are used as references against the flatness of unknown surfaces for comparison. They use the property of interference to measure the flatness of a test surface.

Optical Lenses (476 suppliers)

Optical lenses are transparent components made from optical-quality materials and curved to converge or diverge transmitted rays from an object. These rays then form a real or virtual image of the object. This area includes micro lenses.

Optical Mirrors (294 suppliers)

Optical mirrors have a smooth, highly-polished, plane or curved surface for reflecting light. Usually, the reflecting surface is a thin coating of silver, or aluminum on glass.

Optical Mounts (92 suppliers)

Optical mounts are specialized holders designed for use with a variety of optical assemblies.

Optical Polarizers (166 suppliers)

Optical polarizers are optical devices that can transform unpolarized or natural light into polarized light, usually by the selective transmission of polarized rays.

Optical Prisms (266 suppliers)

Optical prisms are blocks of optical material with flat, polished sides that are arranged at precisely controlled angles to one another. They are used in optical systems to deflect or redirect beams of light. They can invert or rotate images, disperse light into component wavelengths, and separate states of polarization.

Optical Rails (12 suppliers)

Optical rails mount to optical tables to support components and instruments in a straight line, while retaining the freedom to quickly change their relative spacing.

Optical Tables (21 suppliers)

Optical tables dampen working surfaces with superior flatness. They are used in the precision mounting of optical components.

Optical Windows (279 suppliers)

Optical windows are used to isolate different physical environments while allowing light to pass relatively unimpeded.

Parabolic Mirrors (21 suppliers)

Parabolic mirrors offer excellent correction of spherical aberration.

Pellicle Beamsplitters (7 suppliers)

Pellicle beamsplitters are constructed from thin, nitrocellulose films that are stretched and cemented to rigid supporting rings. They are very delicate and liable to resonate to certain vibration frequencies.

Plate Beamsplitters (89 suppliers)

Plate beamsplitters are semi-mirrors, which reflect part of the incident energy (absorb a relatively small part) and transmit the rest. Some are neutral and some are spectrally selective.

Polarization Rotators (19 suppliers)

Polarization rotators maneuver incident-linearly-polarized light about an optical axis.

Polarizer Mounts (9 suppliers)

Polarizer mounts are used to hold and support polarizers.

Polarizing Cube Beamsplitters (62 suppliers)

Polarizing cube beamsplitters divide unpolarized light into two orthogonally polarized beams at 90° to each other. The transmitted beam is mostly polarized parallel to the plane of incidence (p-polarized), and the reflected beam is mostly polarized perpendicular to the plane of incidence (s-polarized).

Polka Dot Beamsplitters (7 suppliers)

Polka dot beamsplitters consists of an ultraviolet grade fused silica substrate with a vacuum deposited aluminum coating applied in a manner that gives the beamsplitter a polka dot appearance. They have a constant 50/50 reflection-to-transmission ratio over a large spectral range.

Reflectors (58 suppliers)

Parabolic reflectors and ellipsoidal reflectors are used to maximize illumination or projection system output by increasing light source efficiency.

Reticles (28 suppliers)

Reticles are circular, transparent glass elements with a system of lines, dots, circles, or crosshairs for fine measurement or alignment in sighting applications.

Spectral Filters (24 suppliers)

Spectral filters are used to selectively transmit light according to its wavelength. They are not to be mistaken with color filters, which can be differentiated by an associated schott glass number.

Spherical Lenses (166 suppliers)

Spherical lenses, also known as singlets, are transparent optical components consisting of one or more pieces of optical glass with surfaces so curved that they serve to converge or diverge the transmitted rays from an object, thus forming a real or virtual image of that object. This area includes micro spherical lenses as well.

Spherical Mirrors (48 suppliers)

Spherical mirrors are curved so that reflected beams converge on a focal point.

Spherometers (4 suppliers)

Spherometers are used to measure the radius or curvature of spherical surfaces such as optical lenses, spherical mirrors, and balls.

UV Filters (47 suppliers)

Ultraviolet (UV) filters are optical filters which can be used to filter light in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum.

Waveplates and Retardation Plates (104 suppliers)

Waveplates and retardation plates are optical elements with two principal axes, one slow and one fast, which resolve an incident polarized beam into two mutually perpendicular polarized beams. The emerging beam recombines to form