Thorlabs' High-NA Achromatic Collimators are designed for use with high-NA multimode fiber, and are therefore ideal for applications such as fiber photometry. These triplet collimators feature a meniscus lens and an achromatic doublet for high performance across the visible spectrum with low spherical abberation. The optics are broadband antireflection (AR) coated for 350 to 700 nm at the air-to-glass interfaces to minimize losses caused by surface reflections. Each collimator is factory aligned at 473 nm. The collimator housing includes either an FC/PC 2.2 mm wide key connector or an SMA905 port; typically, FC/PC collimators will offer better coupling efficiency.
The multimode collimators are compatible with the AD15F, AD15NT, and AD15F2 adapters for setups requiring SM1-threaded or Ø1" smooth bore compatibility; additional collimator mounting adapters are also available. When using these collimators as a free-space coupler, precise alignment is needed for good coupling efficiency. For autofluorescence and fiber photometry applications, our fluorescence filter cube is ideal for directing a free-space collimated beam towards fluorescence imaging filters. It is also possible to use a kinematic tip-and-tilt mount paired with an XYZ adjustable platform (such as our KM100V Kinematic V-Mount and MT3 (MT3/M) XYZ Translation Stage). Please note that using these collimators without a kinematic mount will introduce 1 dB of loss or more.
Thorlabs offers a wide variety of multimode patch cables that can be used with these collimators, including lightweight cables for optogenetics and low-autofluorescence cables for fiber photometry applications.
We also offer a line of aspheric fiber collimators, including our fixed collimators and our FiberPort adjustable collimation packages, that are well suited for use with a wide range of wavelengths. For our complete line of collimation and coupling options, please see the Collimator Guide tab.