A Cylindrical Lens is a lens which focuses light into a line instead of a point, as a Spherical Lens would. The curved face or faces of a cylindrical lens are sections of a cylinder, and focus the image passing through it into a line parallel to the intersection of the surface of the lens and a plane tangent to it. The lens compresses the image in the direction perpendicular to this line, and leaves it unaltered in the direction parallel to it (in the tangent plane).

Uses

1. In a light sheet microscope, a cylindrical lens is placed in front of the illumination objective to create the light sheet used for imaging.

2. Cylindrical Lenses are used in optical spectrometers.

3. Cylindrical lenses are used in holography.

4. Doublet Cylinder Lens system is used in optical coherence tomography.

5. Cylinder lenses are used in many laser applications also. Cylindrical lens can be used to create a laser line. Doublet cylinder lens is used to make laser sheets and circularize elliptical beams from laser diodes