Eyeglass Prescription - Lens Power

Lens Power

The values indicated in the sphere and cylinder columns of an eyeglass prescription specify the optical power of the lenses in diopters, abbreviated D. The higher the number of diopters, the more the lens refracts or bends light. A diopter is the reciprocal of the focal length in meters. If a lens has a focal length of 1⁄₃ meters, it is a 3 diopter lens.

A +10 diopter lens, which has a focal length of 10 centimeters, would make a good magnifying glass. Eyeglass lenses are usually much weaker, because eyeglasses do not work by magnifying; they work by correcting focus. A typical human eye without refractive error has a refractive power of approximately 60 diopters.

Stacking lenses combines their power by simple addition of diopter strength. A +1 diopter lens combined with a +2 diopter lens forms a +3 diopter system.

Lenses come in positive (plus) and negative (minus) powers. Given that a positive power lens will magnify an object and a negative power lens will minify it, it is often possible to tell whether a lens is positive or negative by looking through it.

Positive lenses cause light rays to converge and negative lenses cause light rays to diverge. A negative lens combined with a positive lens results in a system with a power equal to the sum of the two lenses, so a −2 lens combined with a +5 lens forms a +3 diopter system.

A −3 lens stacked on top of a +3 lens looks almost like flat glass, because the combined power is 0.

In science textbooks, positive lenses are usually diagrammed as convex on both sides; negative lenses are usually diagrammed as concave on both sides. In a real optical system, the best optical quality is usually achieved where most rays of light are roughly normal (i.e., at a right angle) to the lens surface. In the case of an eyeglass lens, this means that the lens should be roughly shaped like a cup with the hollow side toward the eye, so most eyeglass lenses are menisci in shape.

The most important characteristic of a lens is its principal focal length, or its inverse which is called the lens strength or lens power. The principal focal length of a lens is determined by the index of refraction of the glass, the radii of curvature of the surfaces, and the medium in which the lens resides. For a thin double convex lens, all parallel rays will be focused to a point referred to as the principal focal point. The distance from the lens to that point is the principal focal length of the lens. For a double concave lens where the rays are diverged, the principal focal length is the distance at which the back-projected rays would come together and it is given a negative sign. For a thick lens made from spherical surfaces, the focal distance will differ for different rays, and this change is called spherical aberration. The focal length for different wavelengths will also differ slightly, and this is called chromatic aberration.