Photonics Dictionary

A rigid medium, generally a polycarbonate substrate coated with a reflective aluminum layer, that stores information (such as audio, video or data) as digital bits in the form of variations in the...

The optical Fourier transform is a mathematical operation applied to optical signals that involves transforming a spatial domain representation of an image into its corresponding frequency domain...

An optical gate typically refers to a device or system that controls the transmission of light, allowing it to pass through or be blocked in a manner analogous to an electronic gate controlling the...

Optical materials refer to substances or compounds specifically chosen for their optical properties and used in the fabrication of optical components and systems. These materials are characterized by...

1. The direct storage of data as bits in memory using optical systems and properties. The memory makes use of a laser beam that is divided by a beamsplitter and controlled by a modulator and a...

Laser-powered telephone device for analog communications that employs a vibrating plastic membrane as a transmitter to modulate laser light piped via optical fibers from a central exchange, omitting...

A multilayered thin-film device used to modulate transmitted light in integrated photonic circuits.

In an optical fiber or waveguide communications system, an optoelectronic device or module that receives an optical signal, converts this optical signal to an electrical signal which is then...

The function that characterizes the quality of an optical system by denoting the modulation and spatial phase shift of the image of a sinusoidal object with frequency as the independent variable.

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...

A monolithic device containing both photonic and electronic sources, detectors, modulators, etc., on a single semiconductor substrate.

Optoelectronics is a branch of electronics that focuses on the study and application of devices and systems that use light and its interactions with different materials. The term "optoelectronics" is...

Optofluidics is an interdisciplinary field that combines principles from optics and fluidics to create devices and systems that integrate the manipulation of light and fluids. This field focuses on...

A Peltier cooler, also known as a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) or thermoelectric module, is a solid-state device that uses the Peltier effect to transfer heat between two electrical junctions. It can...

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...

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...

A type of matched filter that responds only to the phase of incoming light; the output has a much greater intensity than that of a classical matched filter, which responds to phase and amplitude. The...

Generation of an acoustical signal by a sample exposed to modulated light.

A light therapy that utilizes nonionizing light sources, including lasers, LEDs, and broadband light, in the visible and infrared spectrum. It is a nonthermal process involving endogenous...

A system in which the electrical signal embedded within an audio input signal is converted to a modulated light pattern and recorded on film.

An instrument in which visible light beyond the critical angle from a metallurgical microscope is focused on a reference surface. A certain fraction of the incident light tunnels through air to the...

A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is a compact and integrated device that incorporates multiple photonic components and functions on a single chip, similar to the way electronic integrated circuits...

A noncontact form of electromodulation in which modulation of the electric field is caused by photo-excited electron-hole pairs from a pump source.

The photographic recording of data, in binary form, for storage in memory. Exposure is achieved by a cathode-ray tube or by modulating a continuous-wave laser beam with a Kerr cell, both relative to...

A photovoltaic cell, commonly known as a solar cell, is a semiconductor device that directly converts light energy into electrical energy through the photovoltaic effect. The photovoltaic effect is...

Photovoltaic (PV) refers to a technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity using semiconductors. The term "photovoltaic" is derived from the words "photo," meaning light, and...

In optics, the Pockels effect refers to the phenomenon where the refractive index of a material changes in response to an applied electric field. This effect is utilized in Pockels cells, which are...

A Pockels cell, also known as an electro-optic modulator, is an optical device used to control the polarization of light by applying an electric field. It is named after the physicist Friedrich Carl...

A crystal-based device that combines and adjusts the intensities of multiple wavelengths of laser light in order to obtain the desired output wavelength.

Power modulation refers to the intentional variation of power levels in a signal, often in the context of electronic communication systems. This modulation technique is used to encode information...

System of information coding in which the signal is sampled 8000 times per second and the samples quantized by referring them to a series of preset 8-bit codes. Thus digitized, the signal is sent to...

A device designed to detect frequency-modulated signals by forming a unidirectional pulse from each sine wave. The direct current of the pulse is proportional to the frequency of the...

A device with a limited number of possible output values (sometimes able to be selected) that can translate an incoming signal into these values or codes for outputting. See pulse code modulation. In...

Also known as RAMP microscopy, random access multiphoton microscopy is a microscopic technique that uses multiple acousto-optic modulators to enable faster and addressable scanning of 3D cellular...