When a light traveling in a straight line hits a surface two things are likely going to happen, it’s either the light beam is reflected or it is transmitted. When a laser beam hits a laser splitter or a beam splitter the laser beam splits into two or more beams. This laser splitter lens is also known as beam splitters, beamsplitter or, power splitters and in the reverse case, some factors have to be brought to make it beam combiners. Beam laser lens exists in different types but we will discuss the most commonly used which are the cube and plate beam splitter. A laser splitter lens is designed to reflect a certain amount of a laser beam, at a particular wavelength or polarization state, while allowing the rest of the light to be transmitted. The Plate Splitter optic mirror lens are beam splitters that are aligned at a particular angle to achieve a maximum reflection of a given set of wavelengths. Polarizing Cube splitter lens uses a fused pair of right-angle prisms to separate randomly polarized laser beams. The lateral Displacement splitter lens consists of a fused rhomboid prism and a right angle prism to split a laser beam into two separate but parallel beams.
Properties Of Laser Splitter Lens
- In huge optical devices, a wide aperture is recommended
- The configuration requires the output ports to be at 0° and 90° relative to the input beam, while some require two parallel outputs or some other configuration
- The damage threshold leads to losses especially in the case of Q-switched lasers
- Laser splitters lens with metallic coatings exhibit relatively high losses
- Devices with dichroic coatings have negligible losses
- Some devices work only in narrow wavelength regions, some others are designed for broadband operation
- Some laser splitter lens are polarizing while some are non-polarizing
Cube Laser Splitter Lens
This laser splitter lens comes in a cube shape, the beam separation occurs at the interface within the cube. The cube laser lens comprises two triangular glass prisms which are glued together with some transparent cement. The thickness of that layer can be used to adjust the power splitting ratio for a given wavelength. One may also use some dielectric multilayer coating or a thin metal coating on one or both of the prisms to modify the optical properties. This cube laser splitter lens can differ in its optical polarizer optics state.
Polarizing Cube Laser Splitter Lens
The polarizing cube laser splitter lens is mostly made from crystalline materials. This allows the two output beams to emerge from the same phase, and the angle between these beams is between 15° and 45°.
Laser Splitter Lens With Geometric Splitting
Some splitter lens can split light geometrically by inserting a highly reflecting mirror into a light beam so that some part of the light can pass.
Laser Splitters Lens With Multiple Output
These splitter devices produce more than two beams, some number of output beams of quite similar optical powers with certain spatial patterns.
Fiber Optic Splitter Lens
The Fiber-optic splitters lens are used in fiber-optic interferometers. Splitters with many outputs are required for the distribution of data from a single source to many subscribers in a fiber-optic network.
Metal Coated Mirror
Metallic coating technology is employed to obtain partial reflection.
Plate Splitter Lens
Plate Splitter lens split incident light by a specified ratio that is independent of the light’s wavelength or polarization state. Plate Splitter lens has a coated surface that determines the beam splitting ratio while the back surface is wedged and AR coated to minimize ghosting and interference effects.
