Photonics Dictionary

A stream of electrons emitted by a single source that move in the same direction and at the same speed.

The use of a tightly focused beam of electrons to drill minute holes in substances. The drilling is accomplished by the evaporation of the material in the desired circumference by the intense heat of...

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...

1. A device generally used in a cathode-ray or camera tube to emit a stream of electrons moving at uniform velocity in a straight line. It consists of an emitting cathode and an anode, with an...

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...

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a manufacturing process that involves creating three-dimensional objects by adding material layer by layer. This is in contrast to...

A loss of resolution or detail in a television signal caused by the size of the electron scanning beam.

An electronic transducer, either fixed or adjustable, that reduces the amplitude of a wave without causing significant distortion. See also beam attenuator.

An amplifying device with a wide tuning range in which an electron gun sends a beam of electrons into a slow-wave structure. The electron beam and the electromagnetic wave move in opposite directions...

An electron-beam tube in which the current to an output electrode is regulated by the transverse motion of the tube's electron beam.

In computer graphics, the point on the display screen where the electron beam is located before the display instruction is executed. On directed beam display points, vectors and other graphic...

The use of a short-duration electron beam to record high-speed events that occur in microscopic objects made of materials that emit visible fluorescence during electron bombardment. The method is...

An inorganic compound, yellow to orange in color, that fluoresces strongly enough when bombarded by a high-current-density electron beam to be used as a high-intensity light source.

The electron beam tube of a television camera that converts an optical image into a pattern of electrostatic charges and then scans the pattern to produce a corresponding electronic signal for...

The storage surface of an electron beam tube that is scanned by an electron beam to generate an output-signal current corresponding to the charge-density pattern stored.

The luminous trace formed on the cathode-ray tube screen by the motion of the electron beam.

A vacuum tube with an electron gun at one end and a fluorescent screen at the other. Electrons emitted from a heated filament are accelerated by a series of annular anodes at progressively higher...

A laser warning and countermeasure system containing a sensor that indicates the direction of a laser beam, and analytical instruments to determine pulse code, repetition frequency and wavelength.

Continuous wave (CW) refers to a type of signal or transmission where the signal is constant and does not vary with time. In various contexts, the term is used to describe continuous, uninterrupted...

1. In optics, the bending of light rays toward each other, as by a convex or positive lens. 2. Turning in the eyes to view a near object. 3. In a television picture tube, the crossing of the...

The circuit that regulates an electron beam's deflection in a cathode-ray tube.

The progressive defocusing of a cathode-ray tube display image that occurs when the deflected electron beam impinges on the cathode-ray tube screen at a slant.

A metal coil or coils wrapped around the outside of the neck of a cathode-ray tube. Current passing through the coils produces a magnetic field, which can be used as an alternative to deflection...

Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often associated with military and technological applications where energy, typically...

A cathode-ray tube that either splits an electron beam from one source or uses beams from two sources to produce two beams, each of which can produce separate traces, but which can overlap.

Technique for the precision evaluation of coincidence of a laser beam's center with the edge of the object under study and exact location of that edge by means of a double electronic differentiation...

An edge-emitting light-emitting diode is a type of LED structure where light emission occurs primarily along the edge of the semiconductor chip rather than from the surface. Edge-emitting LEDs are...

A device that uses four electrodes set in an alternating positive-negative polarity series to focus the beams of charged particles employed in electron microscopes and particle accelerators.

A special evacuated camera equipped with means for holding a specimen and bombarding it with a sharply focused beam of electrons. A cylindrical film is placed around the specimen to record the...

An electric field produced to influence an electron stream much in the same manner that a lens affects a light beam.

The photographic recording of images produced by the electrons from an electron microscope. The electron beam carries the images through an array of three lenses, and an enlarged electron image is...

The photographic recording, and later enlarging, of very thin specimens, using an electron beam to form the image.