Photonics Dictionary

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label-free

Label-free refers to a technique or method that does not require the use of additional labels, tags, or markers to detect or identify specific components or entities. In various scientific and...

laser Doppler velocimeter

Device which determines particle velocity through the measurement of scattered interference of a beam pair from a single source. The measured light is Doppler shifted which provides information...

laser gyroscope

Counter propagating beams imaged along the same path in order to detect rotation. Precise rotation is measured through variation of the interference patterns which oscillates external to the standing...

LCIM

low-coherence interference microscope

lens testing equipment

Lens testing equipment refers to a range of specialized tools and instruments used to evaluate the optical performance, quality, and characteristics of lenses. These instruments are essential for...

lensless microscopy

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 fidelity

LiFi, short for light fidelity, is a wireless communication technology that utilizes visible light or infrared light to transmit data. Developed as an alternative or complementary technology to...

liquid-surface holography

The acoustical holographic process in which the hologram consists of slight elevations in a liquid surface, in the areas of the antinodes of the interference pattern. Light diffracted from this...

Lloyd's mirror

A mirror employed with a very high incidence angle to form a pair of coherent light sources by reflection, and therefore forming interference bands.

lock-in amplifier

A lock-in amplifier is a specialized electronic instrument used to extract and measure small signals embedded in noise or interference. It is particularly useful in fields such as spectroscopy,...

long-pass filter

A long-pass filter is an optical filter that allows longer wavelengths of light to pass through while blocking or attenuating shorter wavelengths. These filters are designed to transmit light with a...

Mach-Zehnder interferometer

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...

MCF

mutual coherence function — The mutual coherence function is a complex quantity that is the time-averaged value of the cross correlation function of a light field at two points within an aperture with a time delay that relates the path difference to the point of observation of the interference fringes. The mutual coherence function is the key function in coherence theory and the study of partially coherent light.

metallic coating

A thin layer of metal deposited on the surface of a substrate. The film may serve as a reflector, beamsplitter, neutral density filter or electromagnetic interference filter.

metallic mesh filter

An interference filter in which a very thin metal foil with a periodic array of square holes (inductive mesh) or a thin plastic substrate with an array of metal squares (capacitative mesh) is used as...

Michelson-Morley experiment

An optical experiment carried out conclusively in 1887 that demonstrated that the ether, a hypothetical medium postulated by physicists to explain how light could travel in a wave motion through...

micro-ring resonator

A micro-ring resonator is a compact optical device that utilizes the resonant behavior of light within a small ring-shaped waveguide structure to selectively enhance or filter certain wavelengths of...

microwave holography

The holographic recording of the pattern formed by two sets of coherent microwaves that interfere at a scanning plane. A scanning device converts the microwave interference pattern into a light...

microwave mapping

The pattern of microwave field intensity that can be obtained by detecting the minute expansion of a microwave absorber slab when heated by the microwave field, accompanied by moiré interference of a...