Abstract

Ball lenses are important for many applications. For example, ball lenses can be used to match the mode of a laser diode (LD) to a single mode fiber (SMF), essential for low-loss, high bit rate communication systems. Modeling the propagation of LD light through a ball lens presents a challenge due to the large angular divergence of the LD field (typically >20° HWHM) and the subsequent significant effect of spherical aberration. Accurately calculating the reflected power is also difficult, but essential, since reflections as small as −30 dB can destabilize the LD. [1]

© 1995 Optical Society of America