Photonics Dictionary

Optical strain sensors are devices that utilize optical principles to measure the deformation or strain experienced by a material under mechanical stress. These sensors convert changes in strain into...

An optical testing instrument is a device or system used to evaluate and measure the performance, quality, and characteristics of optical components, systems, and devices. These instruments play a...

A technique for detecting and measuring atmospheric pollution, in which an oscillating mirror directs half the incoming light to a transducer that controls amplitude and frequency, and the resulting...

In optics and photonics, "phase" refers to a property of electromagnetic waves, such as light, that describes the position of a wave at a given point in time within its oscillation cycle. More...

In optics and photolithography, a phase mask refers to a device that modifies the phase of light waves passing through it. The phase mask is used to control the spatial distribution of the light's...

A phase-modulated sensor is a type of sensor that uses modulation of the phase of a signal to measure changes in a physical quantity. In such sensors, variations in the phase of the signal are...

Photoelastic equipment and supplies refer to instruments and materials used in photoelasticity, a technique used to analyze stress distribution and behavior in materials. photoelastic equipment...

A technique proposed for studying the atomic structure of crystals by measuring the interference pattern generated when the crystal is illuminated by a burst of finely tuned x-rays. The resulting...

A photon sieve is an optical device used in the field of optics and imaging. It's designed to focus and shape light, typically for applications such as imaging or microscopy. The photon sieve...

Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to measure and analyze the optical phase information of transparent specimens. Unlike traditional brightfield...

A device that is used to determine the index of refraction of a gas or liquid through the interference patterns formed by two beams of light, one of which has been transmitted by the sample. A single...

Measure of the interference fringe pattern produced by the forward scattering of light by an optical fiber; the fringe pattern is inversely proportional to the fiber diameter.

A self-interference effect that generates random patterns; secondary speckle pattern (SSP) typically occurs in diffuse reflections of a laser on paper, white paint or rough surfaces. By tracking both...

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that split a polarized beam of light into ordinary and extraordinary rays, then...

Device that uses a coherent reference wave to record the interference patterns produced by incident ultrasonic waves on an object.

Spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) is an optical microscopy technique that belongs to the category of quantitative phase imaging methods. It is designed to provide high-resolution,...

Refers to the variety of techniques that use the interference pattern produced by laser light diffusely reflected by an object. There are two basic techniques: direct laser photography, used when...

A power intensity pattern produced by the mutual interference of partially coherent beams that are subject to minute temporal and spatial fluctuations.

In interferometry, the result of superimposing two wavefronts of identical shape, yielding a uniform intensity interference pattern with no bands.

The method by which Thomas Young in 1802 disproved Newton's corpuscular theory of light by the formation of interference patterns between two beams of light from the same source. This was produced by...

In an interference pattern, that point where there is no difference between the optical paths of the interfacing wavefronts.