Photonics Dictionary: M

Machine learning (ML) is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that focuses on the development of algorithms and statistical models that enable computers to improve their performance on a specific...

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.

High-voltage, fast-discharge circuit named after its inventor, Erwin Marx. Its capacitors are charged in parallel and discharged in series. The voltage multiplication achieved with a Marx circuit is...

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...

Optical components exceeding 24 in. in diameter. The components are usually glass, acrylic or polystyrene and are used for virtual image systems in simulators and collimators.

A wedge in a rangefinder or heightfinder used to displace the image produced by one telescope so that it coincides with that produced by the other telescope, thus affording a measurement of the...

Meta-optics, also known as metasurface optics or flat optics, is a branch of optics that involves the design, fabrication, and utilization of artificial structures called metasurfaces to control and...

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other...

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrays of subwavelength-scale artificial structures, often referred to as meta-atoms or meta-elements, arranged in a specific pattern to manipulate the propagation of...

The term "metaverse" refers to a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and persistent virtual worlds. It is a concept derived from science...

Micro-optical coherence tomography (micro-OCT) is an imaging technique that is an adaptation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to achieve high-resolution, cross-sectional imaging of biological...

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 camera used to reduce originals onto film for easy storage. There are two basic types: one in which the film is fixed during exposure, and one in which the film is exposed while moving past an...

An eyepiece located at the near end of the microscope tube. It often is a simple Huygens eyepiece, but compensating and flat-field projection eyepieces are quite efficient. Negative eyepieces are...

The lens located at the object end of a microscope tube. A wide range of objectives is available, including simple achromats, the color-corrected apochromats and the flat-field objectives. Objectives...

A system composed of a prism spectroscope and compound microscope to provide the visual comparison of two spectra simultaneously -- that of the sample focused by the microscope and that of the...

The simultaneous occurrence of specular and diffuse reflection.

The simultaneous occurrence of direct and diffuse transmission.

A mixed-signal oscilloscope (MSO) is a type of electronic test instrument that combines the capabilities of both a traditional oscilloscope and a logic analyzer. It is designed to capture and display...

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...

Simulation of radiative transfer in which each photon is generated by a source and its path through the medium is statistically simulated with absorption and scattering probabilities as well as with...

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...

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...

A fiber optic connector or splice that mates two multifiber cables, optically aligning all of the individual fibers simultaneously.

Describing a laser that emits simultaneously at more than one wavelength.

A multiline laser system refers to a type of laser that is capable of emitting multiple discrete wavelengths or spectral lines simultaneously. Unlike single-line lasers, which produce radiation at a...

The recording and mathematical analysis of all spectral intervals of the spectrometer simultaneously.

Multispectral imaging is a technique that involves capturing and analyzing images at multiple discrete spectral bands within the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike hyperspectral imaging, which acquires...

An instrument used to record the emittance or reflectance of an object by scanning with discrete spectral resolution over a wide spectral band, or recording many discrete spectral bands...

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...