Prisms

Material

Illustration

Properties and Application

Penta Prism

BK7

Penta prism can deviate an incident beam without inverting or reversing to 90. The deviation angle of 90 is independent of any rotation of the prism about an axis parallel to the line of intersection of the two reflecting faces. It is commonly used in Plumb Level, Surveying, Alignment, Rangefinding and Optical Tooling.

Beamsplitter
Penta Prism

BK7

By adding a wedge and with partial reflective coating on surfaces S1, it can be used as a beamsplitter. It is often used in Plumb Level, Surveying, Alignment, Rangefinding and Optical Tooling.

Right-Angle Prism

BK7

or

Fused Silica

Right angle prism is deviating or deflecting a beam of light with 90° or 180°.It is often used in telescope, periscope and other optical system. Furthermore, Laser grade right angle prism is also available by Tempotec. Please see the following chapter “ laser optics” for more information.

Dove Prism

BK7

Dove prism has two applications. The main application is used as a rotator. It can rotate an image but without deviating the beam. And when the prism is rotated about the input parallel ray through some angle, the image rotates through twice that angle. It is very important that the application must be used with parallel or collimated beam and the large square reflective surface should be kept very clean. Another application is used as a retroreflector. For this application it perform as a right-angle prism.

Roof Prism
(Amici Prism)

BK7

Roof prism is combined with a right angle prism and a totally internally reflecting roof and they are attached by them largest square surfaces. It can invert and reverse an image, also, deflect the image 90° . Therefore, it is often used in terrestrial telescopes, viewing systems and rangefinders.

Corner Cube Retroreflectors

BK7

It has three mutually perpendicular surfaces and a hypotenuse face. Light entering through the hypotenuse is reflected by each of the three surfaces in turn and will emerge through the hypotenuse face parallel to the entering beam regardless of the orientation of the incident beam. For its special performance, it is often used to the distance measurement, optical signal process and laser interferometer.

Anamorphic Prism

SF11

These two prisms can expand or contract the beam in one direction without any changes in the other direction. By adjusting the angles among the incident beam and two prisms, the shape of the beam can be changed. It is very easy to turn elliptical beam into circular beam.