Photonics Dictionary

In photonics, a lattice refers to a periodic arrangement of optical elements or structures, often on a microscopic or nanoscopic scale. These optical lattices can be created using various techniques...

In the optical shop, the process of positioning and marking a blank or lens before surfacing, cutting and edging.

A lens blank is a piece of optical material in a raw, unfinished state, typically in the form of a disk or block, from which lenses are eventually fabricated. Lens blanks are made from various...

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...

The term light field refers to the spatial distribution of light rays traveling in all directions through a given space. It includes information about the intensity and direction of light rays at...

Also known as single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), this process was designed for imaging of sensitive samples and fast biological processes in vivo. In this method, a light sheet illuminates...

Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly polarized light signals in various applications, such as optical...

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...

Optical fiber that transmits a greater percentage of input light than does high-loss step-index fiber. Low-loss fiber requires higher purity materials and a more sophisticated drawing process and...

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 machine vision lens is a specialized optical lens designed for use in machine vision systems, which are used for automated inspection, measurement, and quality control in industrial applications....

A machine vision system is an integrated combination of hardware and software components designed to capture, process, and analyze images to perform automated inspection, measurement, and quality...

Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) is a precision optics polishing technique used for shaping and finishing optical surfaces to achieve extremely high levels of smoothness and accuracy. It is...

A shaft, spindle or any object generally passed through a workpiece to hold, support or shape a particular piece during its machining process or its practical use. In fiber optics, optical fibers are...

An accurate metal prism or plane parallel plate that is cemented to an optical element and remains with it during a series of grinding or polishing processes. The metal element contains threaded...

Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level. These components are miniaturized optical elements that manipulate light at a...

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...

Transmission loss in optical fibers caused by packaging processes; it is considered a power-coupling effect from the guided modes to the radiation modes.

A microbubble resonator is a device used in photonics and optical physics for the precise manipulation of light waves. It consists of a micro-sized, gas-filled spherical cavity (the "microbubble")...

A device to modulate spatially a collimated coherent beam of light with input data in optical data processing. It uses a photocathode mounted on a microchannel plate, which amplifies an electron...

The formation of transistors, diodes, capacitors, resistors and other electronic elements directly on a flake of silicon by etching and selective absorption of doping elements. A circuit diagram...

A microcomb, short for microresonator frequency comb, is a novel photonic device that generates a precise series of evenly spaced optical frequencies, akin to the teeth of a comb, across a broad...

A microdisplay is a miniature electronic display technology that is designed to project visual information onto a small screen. Unlike traditional displays, microdisplays are typically very compact...

An automatic surface-generating process involving the removal of a material from a given surface. Optical milling typically involves the abrasion of glass by a diamond-charged wheel.

A mirror blank refers to the initial piece of material from which a mirror is made. It is typically a flat or slightly curved piece of glass or other substrate that serves as the starting point for...

The observation and measurement of the flatness of a mirror surface by contacting an optical flat with the mirror. The process generally is done before coating so as not to damage the delicate coated...

Mode-locking is a technique used in lasers to produce ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of picoseconds, femtoseconds, or even attoseconds. This method synchronizes the phases of...

Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is a technique used in the fabrication of optical fibers. It is a specialized form of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that is employed to produce...

MTF analysis/measurement equipment refers to instruments and tools used to measure and analyze the modulation transfer function (MTF) of optical systems. The MTF is a quantitative measure of the...

A modulator is a device or component that modifies a carrier signal in order to encode information for transmission over a communication channel. The process of modulating involves varying one or...

A molded lens is an optical lens manufactured using a molding process, typically involving the shaping of a material, such as glass or plastic, into the desired lens shape. This process involves...

A molecular motor refers to a nano-sized device composed of organic molecules or other small-scale components that can convert light energy into mechanical motion at the molecular level. These...

In optics, a motion controller refers to a device or system that precisely controls the movement of optical components, such as mirrors, lenses, stages, or other elements within an optical setup. The...

A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode is a type of photodetector that consists of metal electrodes on a semiconductor material. Unlike the more common PIN photodiodes, which have a P-type and...

Computerized lens design algorithm that permits the lens MTF characteristic to be included and controlled during the optimization process. MTF optimizations typically allow lens design users to...

Multi-axis alignment refers to the process of aligning or adjusting components or systems in multiple spatial dimensions or axes. In various technical and engineering contexts, achieving precise...

A spectrometric instrument that detects radiation simultaneously in multiple channels, sorts it spectrally from the deep ultraviolet to the infrared, digitizes the information and stores it for...

Characteristic of optical correlators in which invariance to more than one distortion parameter per axis of the processor is obtainable.

Nanophotonics is a branch of science and technology that explores the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, typically at dimensions smaller than the wavelength of light. It involves the study and...

A unique glass made up of nano-structured materials to create millimeter sized monolithic glass space-variant polarization converters which ultimately alter the way light propagates through and is...

Nd:YAG laser refers to a solid-state laser that utilizes neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:Y3Al5O12) as the gain medium. This type of laser emits light at a wavelength of 1064 nm in the...

A near-infrared (NIR) camera is an imaging device designed to capture images in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The near-infrared spectrum typically extends from about 700...

A nitrogen vacancy (NV) refers to a specific type of defect or impurity in a crystal lattice where a nitrogen atom replaces a carbon atom adjacent to a vacancy (an empty lattice site) in the diamond...

Nonlinear optical materials are substances that exhibit optical properties that are not linearly proportional to the intensity of incident light. In other words, these materials produce optical...

Nonlinear optics is a branch of optics that studies the optical phenomena that occur when intense light interacts with a material and induces nonlinear responses. In contrast to linear optics, where...

Nonlinear polarization refers to the phenomenon where the polarization of a material responds nonlinearly to an applied electric field. In linear systems, the polarization of a material is directly...

Commonly performed in spectroscopy, the optical null process is a method for radiation detection whereby physical detectors are used to rapidly interchange the intensity between a reference beam and...