Laser damage threshold, wavefront distortion, and mounting stress are the three most common sources of beam splitter failure or underperformance in real optical systems. Beam splitters are classified by construction (plate, cube, pellicle, polka dot) and by function (standard, non-polarizing, polarizing, dichroic). Construction determines ghosting, damage threshold, and form factor. It is made by joining the inclined surfaces of two right-angle prisms, and a thin film coating is applied to the boundary surface to. A beam splitter (or beamsplitter, power splitter) is an optical device which can split an incident light beam (e. It is a crucial part of many optical experimental and measurement systems, such as interferometers, also finding widespread application in fibre optic telecommunications.