3SAE Technologies has developed an automated ball lensing station to create fibre optic ball lenses – rounded-edge fibre cleaves for use in precision laser technologies.
Traditionally, fibre ball lenses are produced using a manual fusion splicing process. 3SAE’s new automated lensing station enables the large-scale production of ball lenses, which are increasingly used in today's medical lasers and other commercial photonics applications.
One medical application in particular is laser lithotripsy, a minimally invasive surgical procedure using fibre optic lasers for the removal of impacted kidney stones.