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Aspheres

Custom Aspheres for Smaller, Lighter Optical Systems

Compared to spherical lenses, aspheres tighten optical performance. With non-spherical shapes that minimize aberrations, aspheres give your optical system sharper focus, superior image quality, and light control in a more compact design. 

Incorporating aspheres in your design can reduce the number of elements, giving you a lighter weight, more compact optical system. 

Asphere Design and Manufacturing Capabilities

  • 10mm - 200mm
  • Prototype to high volume production
  • Broad range of materials including optical glass (Schott, Ohara, Hoya, CDGM), fused silica, fused quartz, filter glass, and float glass.

Asphere Applications

Night vision goggles Multi-wavelength laser collimation Multi-spectral imaging
Telescopes LASIK devices Machine vision
Ophthalmology Threat detection Laser target designators
Scopes High-power lasers 3D scanning and imaging

 

What is an Asphere?

Aspheric lenses have at least one surface defined by an aspheric equation that has a fluctuating local radius across the diameter of the part. As a result, this creates an optical lens with a non-constant radius around the sphere.

 

aspheres, aspheric lenses, aspheric optics

Aspheric Lens Manufacturing

Draw on LaCroix's 75+ years in precision optics manufacturing for careful analysis of your print and aspheric lens design.

  1. Verification: 

    Manufacturing engineers carefully verify the sag table against the print to ensure the sag table with the print before production begins. Learn more about aspheres with these resources:

    Measuring Aspheres in a 3-D World White Paper Manufacturing Considerations for Tolerancing Aspheres White Paper

    Note: When sending a sag table and aspheric terms, do not truncate the vertex radius, conic constant, or any of the aspheric terms.

  2. Glass Blank: With verification complete, production begins with a near-net-shape optical glass blank.
  3. Rough Grind: An initial rough grind with a diamond ring tool ensures a best-fit sphere into the aspheric lens blank. From there, a series of progressively smaller grit diamond tools sub-aperture grind the aspheric prescription into the part. LaCroix's highly specialized CNC grinding technology minimizes mid-spatial frequency errors.
  4. Polishing: An initial polish removes all subsurface damage from the grinding process.
  5. 3D Aspheric Metrology, Profilometery: An iterative feedback loop communicates with the aspheric polisher to correct the form and slope error until the lens meets specifications.

Advanced Processing Technology

LaCroix Precision Optics maintains state-of-the-art machinery and has recently made significant investments in the latest innovative aspheric technology. View our Advanced Processing page to learn more.

Optical Coatings, UV to SWIR

LaCroix's commitment to quality extends to our in-house optical coatings, designed for demanding medical, defense, and industrial optical systems. See our optical coating capabilities.