Photonics Dictionary

A type of glass optical fiber that provides low pulse dispersion over a broad portion of the light spectrum and as a result can operate at 1300-nm and 1550-nm wavelengths simultaneously.

1. In detector technology, the long wavelength at which detector response falls to a set percentage (usually 20 or 50 percent). 2. In fiber optics, the shortest wavelength at which a fiber transmits...

An optical fiber, usually a single-mode fiber, that has an outer cladding with nearly the same index of refraction as the core and an inner cladding with a very low index of refraction.

Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is an optical communication technique used to increase the data-carrying capacity of optical fiber networks by simultaneously transmitting multiple...

Differential mode delay (DMD) is a parameter used to characterize the propagation characteristics of optical fibers, particularly in multimode fiber optic systems. It refers to the difference in...

A dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) refers to a type of optical fiber designed to minimize the effects of chromatic dispersion, which is the phenomenon where different wavelengths of light travel at...

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...

Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a specialized optical fiber that features two concentric cladding layers surrounding a core. The design of double-clad fibers allows them to be used in various...

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...

A fiber optic cable assembly refers to a complete unit consisting of optical fibers, connectors, protective jackets, and other components that are assembled together to facilitate the transmission of...

A fiber optic preform is a cylindrical glass rod or tube used as the starting material for manufacturing optical fibers. It serves as the precursor from which optical fibers are drawn. The process of...

A fiber optic spectrometer is a device used for measuring the spectral content of light. It utilizes optical fibers to transmit light from a source to a spectrometer unit, where the light is...

A fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic communications to transmit and receive data over optical fibers. It integrates both a...

A microscope in which laser light is delivered through single-mode fibers that replace the pinhole usually used in confocal microscopy. When the Gaussian mode is imaged from the fiber output onto the...

A shaft, spindle or any object generally passed through a workpiece to hold, support or shape a particular piece during its machining process or its practical use. In fiber optics, optical fibers are...

For a single-mode fiber, the measurement of the irradiance distribution at the fiber's end face.

A multihaul transceiver is an optical transceiver module designed to support multiple network architectures or transmission technologies within a single compact device. It offers versatility and...

Also referred to as the V number in fiber optics; the normalized frequency is a dimensionless quantity, denoted by the symbol V, given by: where a is waveguide core radius, l is wavelength in vacuum,...

Single-mode fiber that preserves the plane of polarization of the light launched into it as the beam propagates through its length. Also called polarization-maintaining fiber. The polarization is...

A means of achieving higher peak powers and more efficient harmonic generation by narrowing the pulse width and thus increasing the frequency bandwidth of the output of CW mode-locked lasers....

An optical waveguide in which only the lowest order bound mode, which may consist of a pair of orthogonally polarized fields, can propagate at the wavelength of interest.

A standard for fiber optic telecommunications interfaces, with a 1300-nm data link operating over single-mode fiber at data rates of 52, 155 and 622 Mb/s.

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for obtaining high-quality diffraction patterns from single crystals. This...

In a single-mode optical fiber, the wavelength that causes material dispersion and waveguide dispersion to cancel each other. In a multimode fiber, loose term for the wavelength at which there is a...