Thorlabs, Inc. Laser Line Generator Lenses

At Thorlabs, we constantly reinforce our desire to serve at the pleasure of our customers. From this comes our desire to be connected to our industry in a way that far exceeds what would typically be expected of a vendor. Thorlabs lives this core principle by seeking to enhance, at every turn, the productivity of our customers. We have developed a culture that constantly seeks your input; many of you have experienced this first hand, as a large portion of our product offerings are customer inspired. Others may note that a website feature exists because you let us know that it would make you more productive. A direct outcome of this customer focus is our utmost respect for your time. This drives us to question everything we do. It informs our product design, shapes our approach to manufacturing, and provides clarity for our customer service department. We constantly ask ourselves how we can make the entire process of finding, understanding, purchasing, and using a product more efficient. By saving you time, we enhance your productivity, which allows us all to foster the continued forward movement of photonics. Thorlabs' extensive line of lenses includes spherical, achromatic, aspheric, and cylindrical lenses, both with and without antireflection coatings deposited on the surfaces. Choose from various substrates, including N-BK7, UV fused silica, calcium fluoride, magnesium fluoride, zinc selenide, germanium, and silicon. In addition, Thorlabs also offers Axicons and Air-Spaced Doublets. These Laser Line Generator Lenses, also known as Powell lenses, generate a straight, uniform laser line by fanning out a collimated beam in one dimension, as shown in the diagram above. The apex of each lens features an aspheric curve that evenly distributes the optical power, resulting in an intensity variation of less than 30% over the center portion of the line. This can be contrasted with standard cylindrical lenses, which can be used to produce diverging laser lines with Gaussian intensity profiles. The relative shape of laser lines with uniform and Gaussian intensity profiles can be seen in the image to the right. The lenses are available with output fan angles of 30°, 45°, 60°, or 75°. They are designed for use at 633 nm with an input beam diameter of 0.8 mm (1/e2). To achieve this beam diameter using a fiber-coupled light source, we recommend using our F230FC-B Fixed Focus Fiber Collimation Package. A plot of the typical laser line intensity profile can be found in the Specs tab. These laser line generator lenses are produced from N-BK7 or N-SF6 glass substrates. These lenses can be mounted by using our LMRA9 adapter for ø9 mm optics, which would then be mounted into a ø1/2" mount; this solution requires the lens to be epoxied into the adapter. Alternatively, the lenses can be secured in the SM1-threaded AD9.5F adapter without the need for epoxy. Please note that these lenses are very sensitive to misalignment, and that great care should be taken when aligning the incoming beam over the apex of the lens. Therefore, we recommend securing these mounting adapter in a translation mount, such as the post-mountable LM1XY.