Plano-concave cylindrical lenses have a flat surface on one side and a cylindrical surface on the other side, and have a negative focal length. Cylindrical lenses are generally used for beam shaping. Typical applications include a double cylindrical lens group to collimate and circularize the output beam of a laser diode. To reduce spherical aberration, plano-concave cylindrical lenses are used to diverge collimated beams into spots. The beam should be incident on the curved surface of the lens.

Cylindrical lenses have a cylindrical surface. Unlike spherical lenses, which act symmetrically on the incident light in two directions, cylindrical lenses only act on the incident light in one direction. Cylindrical lenses are generally used to converge parallel or diverging light beams onto a line or change the aspect ratio of the image. Cylindrical lenses are generally designed for applications that require one-dimensional shaping of the light source. They have two structures, plano-concave and plano-convex, which are used to diverge or converge beams respectively. Plano-convex cylindrical lenses focus the incident light onto a line, have a positive focal length, and consist of a flat surface and a convex cylindrical surface. Plano-concave cylindrical lenses consist of a flat surface and a concave cylindrical surface, and have a negative focal length.

AOS Optics provides a variety of cylindrical lenses, including plano-convex cylindrical lenses, plano-concave cylindrical lenses, positive cemented achromatic cylindrical lenses, etc. It can provide double-sided anti-reflection coating for cylindrical lens products, which can greatly reduce the reflection on the surface of the element and increase its transmittance. The anti-reflection coating includes UV, VIS, NIR, SWIR, IR1 and IR2. A variety of materials are available, H-K9L optical glass substrates are suitable for visible light and near-infrared band applications, germanium, silicon, zinc selenide, and calcium fluoride substrates are suitable for infrared applications, and fused silica is suitable for ultraviolet applications.