Photonics Dictionary

A photoelectric detector consisting of a glass tube internally coated with a low conductance material. Voltage applied along the tube causes photoemission from the photocathode at the end of the tube...

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) equipment refers to a class of specialized apparatus used in the process of chemical vapor deposition, a technique for depositing thin films of various materials onto...

An optical interference coating, vacuum-deposited on a circular substrate, whose transmission characteristics may be varied by physical rotation.

The low-refractive-index material that surrounds the core of an optical fiber to contain core light while protecting against surface contaminant scattering. In all-glass fibers, the cladding is...

A mechanism or device, especially a coating with a refractive index equal to or slightly greater than that of an optical fiber's cladding, that removes modes propagating through the cladding by...

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 mirror whose coating serves to reflect visible radiation while transmitting the infrared.

The application of coating without heating of the substrates.

Film that produces color negatives or transparencies by the use of three emulsions, one coated over the other, that are each sensitive to one of the colors red, blue or green.

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light or electromagnetic waves back towards their source with minimal deviation in...

A custom optic refers to an optical component that is designed, manufactured, and tailored to meet specific requirements or applications. These optics can include lenses, mirrors, prisms, filters, or...

A multilayer coating that manifests both a low radiant reflectance and radiant absorption.

Dewetting is a phenomenon in materials science and physics where a thin film or coating spontaneously undergoes a process of breaking up and forming isolated droplets on a substrate. This occurs due...

A very hard, highly transparent coating based on forms of carbon, used to protect optical components from abrasion and chemical damage.

A mirror coated to reflect cold (white) light while transmitting hot (infrared) energy.

A dichroic mirror, also known as a dichroic beamsplitter or interference filter beamsplitter, is an optical device that selectively reflects or transmits light based on its wavelength. Dichroic...

A diffraction grating is an optical component consisting of a surface with a periodic structure of equally spaced, parallel grooves or rulings. These rulings act as an array of closely spaced slits...

A system for fabricating optical fiber, consisting of a furnace that heats the materials, a polymer coating stage, a capstan-pulling apparatus that free-draws the preform into a fiber and a drum on...

Type of solid-state display tube in which the readout surface is coated with a material that changes color when positively or negatively charged.

The deposition of a metallic coating, usually nickel, on a component by chemical means rather than by electroplating; the component is immersed in a solution containing a reducing agent.

A method of thin-film deposition in which electrons boiled off a heated cathode are used to melt the coating material. If a multipocket crucible is used, many materials can be processed at the same...

The method by which photographic film is scanned by an electron beam. One technique uses the uniform light of a television screen, focused by a lens onto the processed film, as a means of creating a...

An electron-beam lithography (EBL) system is a sophisticated nanofabrication tool used in the semiconductor industry and research laboratories to pattern extremely fine features with sub-micrometer...

The recording of the information contained in a modulated electron beam onto photographic or silicon resin-coated materials. A direct recording method involves the passage of the recording medium...

An electrowetting display (EWD) is a type of electronic display technology that utilizes the principles of electrowetting to control the behavior of colored oil droplets on a hydrophobic surface....

In photography, the layer of light-sensitive material (usually a suspension of silver halide crystals) that coats the film or plate.

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a laboratory technique used to detect and measure the presence of specific substances, such as antibodies, antigens, proteins, hormones, or other...

Etaloning is an optical phenomenon that occurs in imaging systems, particularly in devices such as spectrometers, interferometers, and cameras. It is characterized by the appearance of interference...

An X-Y electrically addressable series of arrays with individual electron emitters bombarding a phosphor-coated transparent plate. The phosphor is induced into luminescence, similar to traditional...

A fluorescent screen refers to a phosphorescent or fluorescent-coated surface that emits visible light when exposed to other forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays or ultraviolet light....

Fresnel reflection refers to the reflection of light at the interface between two different media with different refractive indices. This phenomenon was named after the French engineer and physicist...

An optical reflector with the reflective coating applied to the front surface of the substrate. This eliminates the ghost image formed with second-surface mirrors.

An early form of photographic media consisting of glass plates coated with an emulsion.

Graphene is a two-dimensional allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice pattern. It is the basic building block of other carbon-based materials...

Describing a surface that is coated with a film of metal of such thickness that it transmits about one-half of the incident light and reflects about one-half.

A mirror with a coating that reflects infrared radiation and transmits visible light.

A material widely used as a transparent conductive coating.

An infrared lens is an optical component specifically designed and optimized for transmitting, focusing, or manipulating infrared (IR) radiation within the infrared spectrum. These lenses are used in...

An optical component coated to reflect infrared radiation. Gold, silver and aluminum are typical coating materials.

A hollow sphere coated internally with a white diffusing material and provided with openings for incident beam, specimen and detector used for measuring the diffuse reflectance or transmittance of...

A technique for improving the structure density of thin-film coatings by bombarding the growing film with accelerated ions of oxygen and argon. The kinetic energy then dissipates in the film, causing...

Ion-beam sputtering (IBS) is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique used for depositing thin films onto substrates. It involves bombarding a target material with a beam of energetic ions,...

Also called coating jig allowance. That margin on an optical component that is outside the clear aperture for use in holding the component in the optical thin-film coater tooling during the...