Photonics Dictionary

The error inherent in spectral energy or spectrophotometric quantity due to the finite dimension of the entrance and exit slits.

An optical instrument for forming the spectrum of a light source and recording it on a film. The dispersing medium may be a prism or a diffraction grating. A concave grating requires no other means...

An instrument in which an image of the sun is scanned by the entrance slit of a monochromator, the exit slit simultaneously scanning a photographic plate for analysis of the solar spectral lines. If...

An instrument similar to the spectroheliograph, but having a scanning method that is performed by a pair of rapidly oscillating slits or a rotating glass block located before a pair of fixed slits at...

A high-contrast transparency of the gas sought, or an array of exit slits that correlates with some features of the spectrum. No standardized formula for positioning, number or thickness has been...

A refractometer that has a greater resolving power than a standard refractometer, and that uses a pentagonal prism to split the light from a single slit into two beams.

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...