Not quite the same thing, but the large mirror arrays used in those giant solar power plants are analogous, though without the circular symmetry of a Fresnel le

Not quite the same thing, but the large mirror arrays used in those giant solar power plants are analogous, though without the circular symmetry of a Fresnel lens. An issue is efficiency: Each groove shadows its neighbor. In fact there's no reason why a Fresnel lens can't be made from rectangular panels instead of circular grooves, except that the latter are easy to cut on a lathe.