A beam travels in a straight line but changes its direction when it hits an optical device (a beam splitter). Beam splitters are optical devices or objects used to split incident lights or beams into two or more designated ratios or smaller beams and they are mostly in form of glass or a reflective device with a 45° (45-degree) angle of incident. They are available in different designs. When a beam hits a beam more split, 50% of the beam is been transmitted through the beam splitter while the remaining 50% is reflected. Most beam splitters come in the form of mirrors and prisons or as a combination of the two, more so, some liquids can split a beam and they are all employed in many optical experiments, measurements, and analyses. These beam splitters come in various forms like the cube, plate, polka dot, and pellicle beamsplitters but the most used is the plate beam splitter. Beam splitters can be either polarized or non-polarized. The polarizing beam splitters split the beam into perpendicular or orthogonal unpolarized beams while for the nonpolarized beams, the incident light is split into a specific percentage without altering the S and P polarization state, this makes the polarization of the reflected and transmitted light unchanged.

Cube Beam Splitter

Cube beam splitters come in various forms and shape depending on the choice and where it is set to be employed, they come in different dimensions like 2.5×2.5×2.5mm, 10.0×10.0×10.0mm, 20.0×20.0×20.0mm, etc. Their wavelength ranges from 245.00 to 1620.00 nm which can be in the form of a cube, wire grid, or prison. The cube Beam more split comes in different types either as a linear polarizer, non-polarizing beam splitter, or standard beam splitter. Some companies produce different designs like the standard cube Beam splitter, Wired gride polarizing beam splitters, lateral displacement beam splitters, panta prison beam splitters, laser line non-polarizing cube beam splitters, laser line polarizing cube beam splitters, c mounted cube beam splitters, laser line high energy polarizing cube beam splitters, broadband non-polarizing cube beam splitters, and broadband polarizing cube beam splitters. All the above-mentioned cube beam splitters have their unique features and characteristics which we can’t exhaust in a single write-up and are mostly employed in laser applications and life sciences. Alpine Research Optics also offers industrial optical mirrors advanced technology to coat their products.

Plate Beam Splitter

Just like the cube beam splitters, the plat beam splitters come in different dimensions like 50.0×50.0mm, 25.0×38.0mm, 35.0×35.0mm, 75.0×75.0mm, etc. Its diameter ranges from 10.0mm to 220.0mm, with a wavelength of 250.00 to 20000nm which can come in form of plate, polka-dot, pellicle, or wire grid. They come in different types like the infrared pellicle beam splitter, laser line non-polarizing plate beam splitters, holo diffractive beam splitters, C-Mounted plate beam splitters, infrared plate beam splitters, broadband polarizing plate beam splitters, circularly polarized light through linear polarizer intensity laser line non-polarizing plate beam splitters, pellicle beam splitters, etc.

Conclusion

Beam splitters come in different shapes, sizes, and wavelengths depending on their area of interest. You must put factors like polarization, wavelength, size, and usage into consideration when choosing a beam splitter. For instance, if a beam splitter is to be used inside an interferometer, you may need to consider path matching and path length. The beam splitters come in different forms like cubes, plates, hexagons, cemented, pentagons, polarizing, non-polarizing, broadband, narrowband, airspaces, and dielectric depending on your choice.