Deposition Sciences, Inc (DSI) has introduced a new range of durable, evenly-coated anti-reflection (AR) ball lenses in diameters from 200µm up to 10.0mm. DSI's IsoSphere AR-coated ball lenses are created using the company's IsoDyn low pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) process, which provides a highly uniform coating over the entire surface of the sphere.
DSI's multilayer coating capability provides dual- and broad-band AR coatings (1310/1550 dual-band). The dual-band coatings allow one lens to be used for either wavelength, reducing the need for lens inventories. The IsoSphere AR-coated ball lenses reduce device assembly costs because there is no need for orientation of the lens in a device since the coating is uniform over all. A wide choice of lens materials, with indices from 1.44 to 2.15 (at 1,550nm), also helps minimise costs while permitting maximum freedom in the optical design.
Featuring hard, scratch resistant coatings (passes 20 eraser rubs), DSI’s AR ball lenses are bondable by a wide variety of methods, making them ideal for use in new or existing optical designs. They offer an affordable and a mechanically-simple optical solution for coupling and collimating applications, e.g. the output of an optical fibre or laser diode. They are also ideal for fibre-to-fibre, diode-to-fibre, and fibre-to-detector coupling when access to the beam is required.