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Ball lenses in their full sphere form have a long tradition of manufacture and use. However, from the parent ball lens, it is possible to derive other child lens types that can have an even more widespread use. If one side of the sphere is flattened and polished, we can obtain general plano-convex, half ball or aplanatic lenses depending on the lens thickness. Instead of reducing the equatorial diameter of the sphere as in the case of drum ball lenses, the ball lens diameter can be also be cut in rectangular fashion. Such lenses are called Cut-ball lenses and their code generator uses the following parameters:
Glass - Optical material,
D - starting ball diameter in mm,
h - lens height (<=D) in mm,
w - lens width (<=D) in mm,
t - optical thickness (<=D) in mm,
S1(λ1- λ2) - coating and wavelength range specification on surface 1,
S2(λ1- λ2) - coating and wavelength range specification on surface 2,
For the full ball EFL= n x D / 4 x (n-1) and WD= EFL x (2-n) / n
where n is the index of refraction of the selected glass and wavelength.
The thickness of the hemispherical lens is D/2.
The thickness of the aplanatic lens derived from a ball is D/2+D/2n.