Plano-convex ingot Plano-convex ingot Plano-convex ingots are lumps of metal with a flat or slightly concave top and a convex base. They are sometimes, misleadingly, referred to as bun ingots which imply the opposite orientation of concavity. They are most often made of copper although plano-convex ingots of other materials such as copper alloy, lead and tin are also known. Plano convex ingots are found across a wide chronological and geographical range with the first examples known from the Near East during the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC. By the end of the Bronze Age they were found throughout Europe and in
Compound refractive lens the order of meters, by using many lenses in series. To minimize the absorption the lens must be made from a material such as aluminium, beryllium, or lithium. CRLs were first demonstrated in the mid-1990s by a group of scientists at the ESRF. They drilled holes in an aluminium block, and achieved focusing in two dimensions. For X-rays a concave lens focuses the X-rays because the index of refraction is slightly below unity. In a CRL of this type the walls between the cylindrical holes act as concave lenses for X-rays traveling perpendicular to the axis of the drilled cylinders.