Photonics Dictionary

A conical or cylindrical package of light rays emanating from a common point on the object.

An assembly of fibers in which the coordinates of each fiber are the same at the two ends of the bundle. Also called coherent bundle.

A bundle of rays that originates from an object point on the optical axis of a lens system.

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 rigid or flexible, concentrated assembly of glass or plastic fibers used to transmit optical images or light. See aligned bundle; incoherent bundle.

A fiber optic imaging bundle is a specialized optical device composed of multiple optical fibers bundled together. Each fiber optic strand within the bundle acts as a conduit for transmitting light....

A bundle of filaments of optical glass or other transparent materials that transmit only light, not optical images. The arrangement of the individual fibers in the bundle is not sufficiently regular...

An assembly of optical fibers that will not transmit coherent images or information because the relationship of the fibers on either end of the assembly is random; Noncoherent fiber bundles are...

A physical constraint, often a lens retainer, that limits the diameter of the axial light bundle allowed to pass through a lens.

A cylindrical lens that may be rotated to distort a bundle of light originating at a point source, to form a line image.

1. A bundle of light rays that may be parallel, converging or diverging. 2. A concentrated, unidirectional stream of particles. 3. A concentrated, unidirectional flow of electromagnetic waves.

A device for the internal inspection of hard-to-get-at mechanical parts, such as rifle barrels, sewer pipes, oil wells, or gas mains. The long narrow tube used contains a telescope system with as...

A convex lens that brings an incident bundle of rays to a focus to produce intense heat at the focus.

A fiber optic end plate constructed by drawing a bundle of parallel fibers embedded in glass and cutting it into thin slices. These slices are assembled in a plane and heated to produce a...

A surface that envelops a bundle of rays or bundle of normals to the wave surface. It may be observed as a hollow, luminous cusp in a turbid medium.

A positive lens located at or close to an intermediate image plane. The collector refracts off-axis light bundles, directing them into the apertures of subsequent optics.

Also known as convergent lens or convex lens. A lens that converges an incident bundle of rays to a focus.

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...

When a block of glass (prism, window, filter, etc.) is placed into a converging light bundle, it increases the physical distance to the point of focus. The equivalent air path for that block of glass...

A cement used to reduce crosstalk in fiber optic bundles or plates.

A mechanical fixture, generally a rigid tube, used to confine the stripped end of a fiber or a fiber bundle.

A plate made up of thousands of glass fibers arranged parallel to one another, i.e., in a coherent bundle, and fused together so that it is hermetically tight. It transfers an image from one plane to...

A bundle of optical fibers arranged randomly for the purpose of transmitting energy, not an image.

A flexible single- or multifiber cable having a bundle of glass fibers arranged to transmit an image.

A coherent optical fiber bundle in which the configuration is flat rather than round, giving an output in a line.

A device used for coding messages and having a fiber bundle that is aligned at both ends and scrambled in the middle, potted and cut. The resulting halves of the bundles serve as encoders or decoders...

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 coherent fiber optic bundle made from fibers whose diameter changes gradually along its length. Used to magnify or reduce the input image.

A wide-field multiobject spectroscopy system used in astronomy, in which a bundle of low-loss optical fibers positioned on the target images is rearranged at its other end into a linear array along...

An optical instrument consisting of an objective lens, a coherent (usually flexible) fiber bundle and an eyepiece to examine the output of the fiber bundle.

That point on the optical axis of a lens, to which an incident bundle of parallel light rays will converge.

A screen with a reflected or transmitted light beam that is confined to a much smaller bundle than was received by the screen, thereby resulting in a higher luminance.

Any arrangement of a bundle of optical fibers that alters the shape of the image. For example, by systematic regulation of the spacing of the fibers from the entrance end to the exit end, a...

The angle between the light input propagation vector and the optical axis of an optical fiber or fiber bundle.

The ratio of the intensities of a light bundle before and after passing through the lens.

A fiber optic bundle split along its length with the ends of the fibers extending separately to illuminate different points with a single light source.

The point on the optical axis of a lens that is the image of the nodal points. For any bundle of rays passing through the optical center of a lens, the incident and emergent rays through this point...

1. In a photonic interconnect, the number of detectors in a given area. Detectors spaced too closely may give rise to crosstalk. 2. In the cross section of a fiber optic bundle, the ratio of fiber...

The ratio of the active core area of a fiber bundle to the total area at its light-emitting or receiving end.

A concave mirror that has the form of a paraboloid of revolution. The paraboloidal mirror may have only a portion of a paraboloidal surface through which the axis does not pass, and is known as an...