Photonics Dictionary: C

A resin obtained from the balsam fir, Abies balsamea, used as a lens cement.

An adhesive used for bonding optical elements or for holding devices.

The surface of an element of a compound lens that will produce the cemented interface. The curves of this interface are called inside curves. To facilitate cementing, the two inside curves should...

In optics, degreasers or ultrasonic arrangements used for removing pitch, cement or polishing material from lenses during manufacture. It also may refer to manual cleaning devices used immediately...

A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used to capture visual information and convert it into electrical signals for...

A coherent fiber bundle (CFB), also known as a coherent fiber optic bundle, is an assembly of multiple optical fibers arranged in a specific geometric pattern to maintain the spatial coherence of...

A compound prism consisting of an assembly of small prisms cemented together that is used in a coincidence rangefinder to transmit the images from the two objectives to a single eyepiece for viewing.

Cold atoms refer to atoms that have been cooled to extremely low temperatures, typically in the microkelvin (µK) to nanokelvin (nK) range, close to absolute zero (0 Kelvin or -273.15°C). At...

An optical element that measures the phase difference between two components of elliptically polarized light to correct for mechanical or optical displacement.

1. A constituent part. It may consist of two or more parts cemented together, or with near and approximately matching surfaces. 2. The projection of a vector on a certain coordinate axis or along a...

A lens composed of two or more separate elements of optical glass that may or may not be cemented together. The surfaces of the elements are shaped to reduce or eliminate the aberrations inherent in...

Energy loss encountered at connectors in optical fiber transmission systems. The major contributors are mutual core displacement and fiber axis tilt. It is observed in both permanent splices and...

Technique that uses high-pass filtering to reduce the local average to zero for all regions of the picture and then applies a gain factor equal to the reciprocal of the local standard deviation to...

One area of image enhancement, accomplished by spatial filtering schemes, that usually involves attenuation of phase changes in the complex amplitude over a limited region of the Fourier spectrum of...

An image-enhancement technique in which each pixel is subjected to a mathematical operation that groups it with its nearest neighbors and calculates its value accordingly.

A compound prism formed by cementing together two 30° prisms, one of right-handed and one of left-handed quartz. It has good ultraviolet-transmitting qualities and no double refraction.

Adhering material used to glue optical components that transmit in the infrared. It is easily dissolved by acetone.