Edmund Optics, a provider of optical components, has introduced its Techspec plastic hybrid aspheric lenses. These colour-corrected plastic aspheres are moulded aspheric-diffractive lenses, which are designed to eliminate chromatic aberrations caused by broadband light sources. The lenses feature diffraction-limited designs and are ideally suited to imaging and ophthalmic applications and for use with tuneable laser and broadband or multispectral illumination sources.
The aspheric base eliminates spherical aberration, allowing for greater image quality. The diffractive surface features a negative optical dispersion, which yields excellent colour correction and minimised chromatic aberration. This characteristic makes the lenses perfect for a wide variety of applications in the imaging and ophthalmic industries.
The lenses are similar in performance to the Edmund Optics' Techspec aspherised achromats, yet they offer several advantages. As the lenses are an all-plastic, monolithic design, they are much lighter weight than comparable aspherised achromats. They are also available in higher numerical aperture designs. These lenses are limited by the inherent diffraction efficiency of the aspheric surface, so they yield a lower overall transmission than comparable aspherised achromats.
The lenses are available in twenty different coated and uncoated versions in sizes ranging from 12mm diameter x 9mm FL up to 12mm diameter x 24mm FL and 25mm diameter x 20mm FL to 25mm diameter x50 mm FL.