Photonics Dictionary

A laser that generates a succession of pulses at a high enough repetition rate to appear continuous. The pump source is switched on for short intervals, nominally equal to the lifetime of the...

Rare-earth elements (REEs) are a group of seventeen chemical elements found in the Earth's crust, characterized by their unique properties and scarcity relative to other elements. Despite their name,...

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...

Seidel aberrations refer to a set of monochromatic aberrations in optical systems, named after the German mathematician and physicist Ludwig von Seidel. These aberrations describe deviations from...

Silicon carbide (SiC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electric current is applied to them. These LEDs are made using silicon carbide as the...

With a repetitive object such as a series of equispaced lines, the reciprocal of the line spacing in object or image, generally expressed in cycles per millimeter.

Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) is a superresolution microscopy technique that enables imaging of biological specimens at resolutions beyond the diffraction limit of conventional...

A substrate refers to a material or surface upon which another material or process is applied or deposited. In various fields, such as electronics, biology, chemistry, and manufacturing, the term...

A device designed to enlarge the image of a microscopic object by television process. It may be a flying spot scanner that is used to scan the microscope slide, or a camera tube-microscope...

A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a powerful microscopy technique that uses a beam of electrons to create high-resolution images of extremely thin samples. In a TEM, electrons are...

In the context of optics and lasers, a transverse mode refers to a specific spatial pattern of the electric field within the cross-section of a laser beam. These modes represent the different...

Volumetric imaging refers to the capture, visualization, and analysis of three-dimensional (3D) information from a volume of space. Unlike traditional two-dimensional (2D) imaging, which provides...