Photonics Dictionary: I

The apparent luminance of the image as seen through an optical system. This brightness of the image is determined by the brightness of the object, as well as the transmittance and etendue - or light...

An electron tube that is used as a camera tube for a television system. When the picture to be transmitted is focused on a photosensitive surface, electrons are emitted from each section of the...

A device embodying a microprocessor that converts an image to digital form and then further enhances the image to prepare it for computer or visual analysis.

A thermal infrared imaging procedure developed for quality control of printed circuit boards. The thermogram of each board under test is compared with a standard thermal profile and then with a...

A process by which a plastic cell is molded around a glass lens or lenses to create a mount, eliminating the metal barrel and the need for glass-to-metal seals.

The total optical power loss caused by the insertion of an optical component such as a connector, splice or coupler into a fiber optic system. See attenuation.

An infrared detector mounted directly on the cold finger of the Dewar cooler rather than at the interface of Dewar and cooler, resulting in decreased size and power consumption and greater...

Loss intrinsic to the fiber caused by parameter (core dimension, profile parameter) mismatches when two nonidentical fibers are joined.

The photoemission that would occur if a crystal were pure and its structure perfect.

Collisional absorption of energy that occurs in inertial confinement fusion systems when hydrodynamic expansion of the plasma causes an electron passing through the field of an ion to absorb...

The ejecting of ions from the surface of a material.

A technique for improving the structure density of thin-film coatings by bombarding the growing film with accelerated ions of oxygen and argon. The kinetic energy then dissipates in the film, causing...

A thermosetting material used in the jacket of fiber optic cables.

Also called calcite. A natural hexagonal crystal of calcium carbonate. It cleaves readily into rhomboids useful in the study of polarized light.

An instrument in which an object's image, produced by a lens of known focal length, is used to determine the object's distance from the instrument when its size is known, or the object's size if the...

A camera tube that employs a high-velocity electron beam to scan a photoemissive mosaic and to store electrical charge patterns.

A crystal that is devoid of any mosaic structure and that can reflect x-rays, relative to the Darwin-Ewald-Prins law.

Any filter in which the range of frequencies within a chosen radius suffers no attenuation and the range of frequencies outside the radius is entirely attenuated.

A theoretical instrument conceived of as a box that receives a beam of radiation of any arbitrary polarization angle and produces a new beam, coaxial with the incident beam, having a specified new...

A system that transmits and receives identification codes to facilitate the discrimination between enemy and friend in a tactical situation.

Pertaining to the possession of photoelectric characteristics as a result of the properties of the true crystal and not of foreign materials.

In semiconductor physics and materials science, the term "III-V materials" refers to compounds composed of elements from group III and group V of the periodic table. More specifically, these...