Photonics Dictionary

A crystal having the axes of its grains aligned so that they have directional magnetic characteristics.

An LCD that has pixels with no internal drive transistors.

A crystalline substance in which all planes are parallel, or approximately parallel.

A photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) refers to a type of laser diode that emits light from its surface rather than from the edges. Photonic crystals are periodic nanostructures that...

Photonic crystals are artificial structures or materials designed to manipulate and control the flow of light in a manner analogous to how semiconductors control the flow of electrons. Photonic...

A crystal consisting of a substance that has the ability to become electrically polarized and has strong piezoelectric properties. It is cut so as to emphasize the coupling to some distinct...

Any crystalline material whose length is much less than its measured diameter.

A crystal diode whose rectifying activity is determined by the touching of the crystal to a finely pointed wire surrounded by a material of opposite type.

A substance that transmits the infrared, but which is too delicate or fragile to be used in the form of a single crystal. Instead, the pure material is finely ground, pressed to the required shape,...

A uniaxial, birefringent crystal having an ordinary ray with a higher velocity than the extraordinary ray.

The growth of particular grain fragments in a metal or alloy, at the expense of others, that occurs when the metal or alloy is severely worked, as by cold rolling. Recrystallization results in...

Sapphire crystal refers to a transparent, single-crystal form of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) known as corundum. It is one of the hardest known materials, second only to diamond on the Mohs scale of...

A scintillation crystal, also known simply as a scintillator, is a material that emits light when it interacts with ionizing radiation such as gamma rays, x-rays, or charged particles. The emitted...

A crystal, glass, or quartz slicing and cutting machine is a specialized piece of equipment used in the manufacturing process to precisely cut and slice materials such as crystals, glass, and quartz...

The section of crystal symmetry having only one-quarter of the greatest number of faces permitted by the crystal system of which the section is a member.

A compound crystal having two or more crystals or crystal sections that, when regularly positioned, are in reverse position relative to the other sections. When viewed, these crystals appear to be...

A doubly refracting crystal having a single axis along which there is an absence of double refraction.

A crystal that is held together by covalent bonds.

An instrument that measures the wavelengths of an x-ray spectrum by the diffraction of x-rays from a crystal with a given lattice spacing.

The study of the arrangement of atoms in a crystal by means of x-rays.

A YAG crystal refers to a solid-state crystal made of yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG), which is a synthetic crystalline material. YAG crystals are known for their exceptional optical properties,...

An accelerometer is a sensor or transducer that measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, or in simpler terms, it measures acceleration. Accelerometers are widely used in various...

Optic surface cleaning liquid that may be applied to glass, crystal, dielectric and metal surfaces; however, may not be applied to plastic and polymer materials.

The angular change of an incident beam due to vibrational induced refractive index changes within a crystal.

Light diffracted by a solid (usually quartz in crystal or fused form) traversed by acoustic waves. If the ultrasonic wavelength is larger than the diameter of the light beam, the diffraction orders...

An acousto-optic modulator (AOM) is a device that utilizes the interaction between sound waves and light waves to modulate or control the intensity, frequency, phase, or direction of laser beams. It...

A bulk crystalline optic which permits the propagation of light through a volume of index altered material. The variation in refractive index along the material volume is due to a piezoelectric...

A type of liquid-crystal display in which each display element contains an active component, such as a thin-film transistor, to maintain its state between refresh scans.

In biaxial crystals, the principal angle that bisects the smaller angle between the optic axes.

A host crystal for chromium that emits pulsed or continuous-wave laser light, tunable from about 720 to 790 nm.

An alexandrite laser is a solid-state laser that utilizes a synthetic crystal made from the rare earth element alexandrite (BeAl2O4:Cr3+). This crystal is capable of emitting laser light in the...

The disordered, glassy solid state of a substance, as distinguished from the highly ordered crystalline solid state. Amorphous and crystalline phases of the same substance differ widely in optical...

The angle between the most divergent rays that can pass through the lens to form an image. In a birefringent crystal light modulator or Pockels cell, the maximum angle in the incident light rays that...

Anisotropic is a term used to describe a material or substance that exhibits different properties or behaviors in different directions. In other words, the physical or mechanical characteristics of...

Anisotropy refers to the property of exhibiting different values or characteristics when measured in different directions. In various fields, including physics, materials science, and geology,...

Attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectroscopy is a technique used in analytical chemistry to obtain IR spectra of samples. It is particularly useful for analyzing solid and liquid samples without...

The rule stating that positive uniaxial crystals have greater absorption with respect to the extraordinary component of light, whereas negative crystals have greater absorption for the ordinary...

A device containing two opposed quartz wedges of equal angle, one wedge being movable along its length by a micrometer screw. The wedges are cut so that their fast directions are along, and...

The emission of a photon by the return of an excited carrier from the conduction band to the valence band of a semiconductor along a radiative recombination path. The resulting photoluminescence...

A relatively hard crystal, highly resistant to excessive energy radiation, that is frequently used for optical windows, prisms and lenses transmitting from the vacuum UV into the IR.

A crystalline material used in piezoelectric devices.

A plane in a crystal that lies parallel to the principal plane of symmetry.

The application of reversible writing with a laser beam on particular storage materials. In one method, an amorphous film is heated and then crystallized for writing. Bubble writing involves the...

Birefringence is an optical property of certain materials that causes them to exhibit different refractive indices for light of different polarizations. In other words, when light passes through a...

A filter that transmits light in a series of sharp, widely spaced wavelength bands by its sandwich construction of alternating layers of polarizing films and plates cut from birefringent crystal.

1. A group of optical fibers that are fused and then treated to produce a vacuum-tight optical fiber cone or plate. 2. An artificial crystal in its raw state, after generation but prior to cutting or...