Definitions

A zone plate in which the zones are alternately transparent and opaque to specific radiation, and coarse enough so that no appreciable diffraction or focusing takes place. The Fresnel zone plate is...

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption or emission of a solid, liquid, or gas sample. It operates based...

Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor commonly used in various electronic and optical applications. Germanium crystals...

A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or phosphoric oxides. Common window or bottle glass is a mixture of soda,...

Graphene is a two-dimensional allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice pattern. It is the basic building block of other carbon-based materials...

The substrate upon which a diffraction grating will be ruled. It must be dimensionally stable, and the surface must be polished to an accurate flat or spherical form as required by the grating. The...

A plate containing a uniform pattern of transparent holes in an opaque background, the clear area being nearly equal to the opaque area. Used in the printing process.

A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen, or quartz iodine lamp, is an incandescent lamp that uses a tungsten filament surrounded by a small amount of halogen gas, such as...

A holographic camera, also known as a holographic imaging system or holographic recorder, is a specialized device used to capture 3D holographic images of objects or scenes. Unlike conventional...

A holographic grating is a type of diffraction grating that is produced using holographic recording techniques. It consists of a periodic structure of alternating transparent and opaque regions,...

Holographic tomography is an advanced imaging technique that combines holography and tomography to provide three-dimensional reconstructions of transparent or weakly scattering objects with high...

An electro-optic system using, in general form, an evacuated glass envelope with a semitransparent photocathode at one end and a luminescent screen at the other for the amplification of an optical...

A bundle of filaments of optical glass or other transparent materials that transmit only light, not optical images. The arrangement of the individual fibers in the bundle is not sufficiently regular...

A material widely used as a transparent conductive coating.

An infrared lens is an optical component specifically designed and optimized for transmitting, focusing, or manipulating infrared (IR) radiation within the infrared spectrum. These lenses are used in...

Infrared optics refer to optical components and systems designed to manipulate and control infrared (IR) light, which lies beyond the visible spectrum. These components are crucial for various...

Photographic recording that uses infrared radiation as the light source to form an image of a microscopic object and a system of lenses and objectives that are transparent to the radiation. The image...

A reflection hologram using multiple color lasers that integrates various graphical techniques to allow the display of three-dimensional images of live objects in motion, as well as outdoor scenes,...

A thin-film device containing miniature optical components connected via optical waveguides on a transparent dielectric substrate, whose lenses, detectors, filters, couplers and so forth perform...

A special form of microscope that utilizes interference for observing and measuring the phase and optical thickness in completely transparent objects and specimen. The object is placed in one beam...

A cell filled with a transparent material that, when placed in a strong electrical field, exhibits double refraction. Since the two polarized elements of an incident light beam travel at different...

Transmittance of a solution, or internal transmittance of a transparent solid, is an exponential function of the thickness of the layer.

A laser cavity, also known as an optical cavity or resonator, is a fundamental component of a laser system. It is a confined region or space where light undergoes multiple reflections, leading to the...

A laser, which stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," is a device that produces coherent and focused beams of light through the process of optical amplification based...

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses are commonly used in optical systems, such as cameras, telescopes,...

Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and reconstructs microscopic images without the use of traditional lenses. Instead of...

Light diffusion refers to the process by which light is scattered or spread out in various directions as it interacts with a medium or material. Unlike direct transmission through a transparent...

Transparent matter that usually is drawn into a cylindrical, pyramidical or conical shape through which light is channeled from one end to the other by total internal reflections. Optical fibers are...

An alphanumeric display formed by a layer of liquid crystal material sandwiched between two sheets of glass; a transparent conductive coating on the glass is etched to form the character segments. An...

A liquid crystal light valve (LCLV), also known as a spatial light modulator (SLM), is an optical device that modulates the intensity, phase, or polarization of light passing through it using liquid...

Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) is a display technology that combines liquid crystal materials with silicon-based semiconductor technology to create high-resolution, high-quality images. LCoS...

A filter that is transparent to longer wavelengths but opaque to shorter wavelengths.

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of light. It is named after the physicists Ludwig Mach and Ludwig Zehnder, who...

A type of high-speed photographic shutter that uses Faraday rotation to produce exposure times as fast as 1 microsecond. It consists of two polarizers, set with their planes of polarization at right...

1. A framelike structure that serves to restrict the viewing area of the screen when placed before a television picture tube. 2. In photolithography, a photomask (or mask) is typically a patterned...

In the context of thin film deposition processes such as evaporation or sputtering, masks are used to selectively deposit material onto substrates, creating patterns or structures with precise...

Also known as an eyepiece micrometer. A microscope eyepiece that has a finely divided scale ruled or photographed on a section of transparent glass, and located in the focal plane. The dimensions of...

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other...

An image-forming system having curved mirrors in place of transparent glass components. Mirror lenses are commonly used for astronomical purposes as well as cheap solutions for very long focal length...

A light source, such as the sun or an incandescent lamp, that freely penetrates ordinary glass bulbs and emits in the near-ultraviolet (wavelengths ranging from about 300 to 400 nm). A mercury vapor...

A strip or annulus of glass coated with a semitransparent material such as inconel. The coating thickness, and as a result its transmission, varies linearly as a function of distance. The neutral...

Also referred to as differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy; Nomarski microscopy is a unique form of microscopy especially suited for the evaluation of surface quality and defects as well...

Dispersion characterized by an increasing index of refraction in the medium as the frequency of the propagating light increases towards the resonant frequency of the medium. Normal dispersion occurs...

Opacity refers to the degree to which something is not transparent or translucent, meaning that it doesn't allow light to pass through it easily. It's a measure of how much a material obstructs the...

An opaque projector is a device used for enlarging and projecting images from opaque objects such as printed pages, photographs, or three-dimensional objects onto a screen or surface. Unlike a...

A permanent, transparent, and highly transmissive adhesive capable of withstanding extreme temperatures that is applied to optical surfaces for the purpose of cementing, or the sticking together of...