Definitions

A 2D profile sensor is a type of sensor used in various industrial and technological applications to measure and capture detailed information about the shape, contour, or profile of an object in two...

Light present in the environment around a detecting or interpreting device, especially a machine vision system, and generated from outside sources. Such light must be treated as noise by the vision...

A light source that emits an uneven distribution of radiant energy through the visible range.

An atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS) is an analytical instrument used to determine the concentration of specific chemical elements in a sample by measuring the absorption of light at...

Attosecond photonics sources refer to devices or systems that generate extremely short pulses of light on the order of attoseconds (1 attosecond = 10-18 seconds). These ultrafast light pulses are in...

An autocollimator is an optical instrument used for measuring small angular deviations with high precision. It operates on the principle of autocollimation, where a light source is directed onto a...

An optical device that produces a line image lying along the axis from a point source of light; therefore, it has no definite focal length. A lens with a weak conical surface on one face.

The forming of a clear silhouette of an object by placing a light source behind it. Used in machine vision when surface features of an object are not important.

A beamsplitter is an optical device used to divide a beam of light into two or more separate beams, typically by reflecting a portion of the incident light while transmitting the remainder....

A device used to compare the luminous intensities of two sources by locating a point between the two light sources where the produced flux densities are equal. The luminous intensities of the two...

A blue diode laser is a type of semiconductor laser that emits light in the blue wavelength range of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically between 400 and 500 nanometers. Diode lasers are compact,...

Brightfield refers to a type of microscopy and imaging technique in which the specimen is illuminated with a white light source, and the image is observed or captured against a bright background. In...

Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with acoustic phonons (quantized lattice vibrations) in a material, resulting in the...

Chip-on-board (COB) lights refer to a type of LED lighting technology where multiple LED chips are directly mounted onto a substrate, typically a printed circuit board (PCB), without the need for...

A light source that is capable of producing radiation with waves vibrating in phase. The laser is an example of a coherent light source.

An optical instrument consisting of a well- corrected objective lens or mirror with a light source and or object/image (i.e. illuminated slit or retical) at its focal plane. Collimators are used to...

A colorimeter is a device used to measure and quantify the color characteristics of an object or a light source. It provides objective and standardized color information, typically expressed in terms...

A reference incandescent light source having a luminous intensity that is used in photometry for comparison of other light sources.

A microscope design that involves apertures inserted in conjugate plane positions inside the microscope, with one aperture in front of the illumination source and the other at the focal position in...

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light or electromagnetic waves back towards their source with minimal deviation in...

A quantitative measurement of the coherence of a light source; equal to the visibility (V) of the fringes of a two-beam interference test: where Imax equals the intensity at a maximum of the...

The interaction of superimposed light from two separate sources that results in a combined intensity that is less than the sum of their individual intensities before they were superimposed.

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is a nondestructive analytical technique used to investigate the optical properties of materials, particularly in the field of spectroscopy. Unlike traditional...

An electric or electronic device that regulates the voltage going to a light source as a means of varying the intensity of the light emitted by the source.

A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...

A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into a solid gain medium, resulting in the generation of coherent light. This...

Light produced by visible radiation that moves from the light source to the object without reflection. With respect to microscopy, this is the light that directly strikes the stage of the microscope...

A small handheld instrument consisting of a slit and collimator that feeds light into a small direct-vision dispersing prism. The eye is placed behind the prism to observe the spectrum of a colored...

A distributed feedback laser (DFB laser) is a type of semiconductor laser diode designed to emit coherent, narrow-bandwidth light with precise control over the wavelength. It achieves this through a...

The principle stating that the displacement of spectrum lines is determined by the distance between, and relative velocity of, the observer and the light source. When distance decreases, the lines of...

A method of erasable optical data storage in which information is stored by visible light, then read by illumination with an infrared source that returns trapped electrons to their ground state....

The method by which photographic film is scanned by an electron beam. One technique uses the uniform light of a television screen, focused by a lens onto the processed film, as a means of creating a...

The term "embedded laser" typically refers to a laser device that is integrated or embedded into a larger system or structure. In this context, "embedded" implies that the laser is an integral part...

An emission spectrum is a graphical representation or a characteristic pattern of the wavelengths or frequencies of light emitted by a source, such as an atom, molecule, or celestial object. It shows...

An endoscope is a medical device used for visualizing and examining the interior of hollow organs, body cavities, or confined spaces within the body. It consists of a flexible or rigid tube equipped...

Epitaxial equipment refers to a set of specialized tools and systems used in the process of epitaxy, which is the growth of crystalline layers on a substrate material. Epitaxial growth is a critical...

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) refers to a specific range of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. EUV radiation has wavelengths between 10 and 124 nanometers, which...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as erbium, ytterbium, or neodymium. Fiber lasers generate coherent light through...