Where to Buy Ball Lenses

A ball lens consists of a highly transparent spherical ball, usually made of solid glass (fused silica) or another optical material with index of refraction less than 2. Most ball lenses are made with small diameters – a few millimeters or even less than a millimeter. The optical physics can be understood by realizing these lenses are, equivalently, two plano-convex lenses separated by a parallel plane.

Ball lenses are commonly used to improve signal quality in fiber coupling applications, or for use in endoscopy or bar code scanning applications. Our ball lenses feature short back focal lengths to minimize the distance needed from the ball lens to the optical fiber. Edmund Optics offers a variety of ball lenses in a range of substrates for performance in the ultraviolet to the NIR. Half-ball lenses are also available to ease mounting or system integration.

Shanghai Optics offers custom-made ball lenses. Please contact us for manufacturing limit or custom specifications. We can offer balls lenses e.g. with a diameter tolerance of ±50 μm, scratch & dig 20/10, surface quality 40-20, and with <50 μm deviation from a sphere.

Knight Optical provides a wide range of ball and half ball lenses which are ideal for endoscopy and fibre communications. We have a variety of material options available including quartz, sapphire, cubic zirconia, ruby, BK7 and other optical glass, fused silica, borosilicate, and many more. Our stock catalogue consists of 0.4 mm to 10 mm diameter ball lenses, but custom dimensions are available up to 100 mm.

Hangzhou Shalom EO provides ball lenses and half ball lenses made from various substrate materials including sapphire, ruby, BK7, UV fused silica, high index glass, and germanium, ZnSe, ZnS with AR coating. Our ball lenses and half ball lenses are ideal for applications such as fiber communications, endoscopy and microscopy.

Available diameters are between 0.3 mm to 100 mm, with diameter tolerance (sphericity) <0.4 µm and surface roughness (Ra) <0.007 µm. Custom ball and half ball module options are also available on request.