Photonics Dictionary: P

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...