What are diopters?

A dioptre, or diopter, is a unit of measurement of the optical power of a lens or curved mirror, which is equal to the reciprocal of the focal length measured in metres (that is, 1/metres).

For example, a 4-dioptre lens brings parallel rays of light to focus at 1⁄4 metre. The same unit is also sometimes used for other reciprocals of distance, particularly radii of curvature and the vergence of optical beams.

One benefit of quantifying a lens in terms of its optical power rather than its focal length is that when relatively thin lenses are placed close together their powers approximately add.

Thus a thin 2-dioptre lens placed close to a thin 0.5-dioptre lens yields almost the same focal length as a 2.5-dioptre lens would have.