Photonics Dictionary

Totally coherent radiation is produced by a purely monochromatic point source. In the real world the energy will have a limited bandwidth and the point source will subtend some angle resulting in...

A passive optical network (PON) is a telecommunications network architecture that uses optical fibers and passive optical components to provide high-speed broadband services to end-users. In a PON...

A photonic engine refers to a device or system that utilizes photonics, or the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons (particles of light), to perform various...

A pulse having extremely short duration, about 10-13 to 10-10 s, that is produced by mode locking of wide-bandwidth lasers, such as the organic dye and ruby lasers. Picosecond pulses are used in the...

Plastic optical fiber (POF) is a type of optical fiber made from transparent plastic, typically polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) or polycarbonate. Unlike traditional glass optical fibers, which are made...

Power modulation refers to the intentional variation of power levels in a signal, often in the context of electronic communication systems. This modulation technique is used to encode information...

A means of achieving higher peak powers and more efficient harmonic generation by narrowing the pulse width and thus increasing the frequency bandwidth of the output of CW mode-locked lasers....

A laser with a gain medium consisting of an organic dye, which is carbon-based. The dye is mixed with a solvent, allowing the molecules to diffuse evenly throughout the liquid. The dye medium is...

A reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is a key component in wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical communication networks. It allows for flexible and dynamic routing of...

Referred to as SWCNTs, these cylindrical nanostructures composed of a folded sheet of graphene can be used as near-infrared markers for small animal multiplex imaging. Emitting at different...

Terahertz (THz) refers to a unit of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, denoting waves with frequencies between 0.1 and 10 terahertz. One terahertz is equivalent to one trillion hertz, or...

A laser capable of generating light pulses that last only a few femtoseconds. This can be achieved by nonlinear filtering to increase bandwidth and compress the pulse or by passive mode-locking or...

Referring to the bandwidth and spectrum location of the signal produced by television or radar scanning.

Volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) are specialized optical elements that consist of periodic variations in refractive index throughout the volume of a transparent material, typically a photosensitive glass...