Photonics Dictionary: M

Refers to micron-size complex machines that have physical dimensions suitable for the fabrication of optical switches for use in state-of-the-art communications networks.

Equipment that supports microscopic live-cell imaging by managing the gas, media perfusion, temperature and other factors to which a sample is exposed. While reducing the negative impacts these...

Pertaining to radiation or particle emission, whereby the emission is produced with minimal energy spread.

A MEMS fiber optic switch is a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device designed to selectively route optical signals between multiple fiber optic channels. These switches utilize miniature...

A magnon is a quasiparticle representing a quantized spin wave in a magnetic material. In other words, it is a collective excitation of the spins of electrons in a magnetic solid, analogous to the...

The decrease in the energy of a photoelectric emission as a result of the simultaneous incidence of radiation having lower frequency than that forming the emission.

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...

An excited energy state of an atom or atomic system that has a longer lifetime than the ordinary excited state and typically a shorter lifetime than the ground state of that system. Metastable states...

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-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...

Micro-robotics refers to the field of robotics that involves the design, development, and application of miniature robotic systems, often at the microscale. These robots, commonly referred to as...

Mie scattering, named after the German physicist Gustav Mie, refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (such as light) by spherical particles. Unlike Rayleigh scattering, which is...

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...

Molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) is a dichalcogenide compound composed of molybdenum (Mo) and selenium (Se). It belongs to the family of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which have garnered...

One surface of a nonconducting plate that is coated with many minute particles of photoemissive material that are insulated from one another.

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...

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path difference to create interference between split optical wavefronts. The...