Wedge Prisms

The wedge prism is a prism with a shallow angle between its input and output surfaces. This angle is usually 3 degrees or less. Refraction at the surfaces causes the prism to deflect light by a fixed angle. When viewing a scene through such a prism, objects will appear to be offset by an amount that varies with their distance from the prism.

Product Code:GA-WP

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Description

Specification

Angle Tolerance (arcsec)	±30
Design Wavelength DWL (nm)	632.8
Image Orientation	Beam Deviation
Substrate	N-BK7
Surface Flatness	λ/10

Application

The term "optical wedge" refers to any shallow angle between two plane surfaces of a window. This wedge may range from a few millionths of a degree of perfect parallelism to as much as three degrees of angle. Even though high-precision optics, such as optical flats, may be lapped and polished to extremely high levels of parallelism, nearly all optics with parallel faces have some slight wedge. This margin of error is usually listed in minutes or seconds of arc. Windows manufactured with an intentional wedge are often referred to as wedge prisms, and typically come with wedge angles of one, two, or three degrees. Many applications exist for wedge prisms, including laser-beam steering, rangefinding and variable focusing.

Wedge Prisms

Wedge Prisms

Specification

Application

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