Photonics Dictionary

The mechanical centerline through the core of an optical fiber.

The lowest frequency at which the magnitude of the fiber transfer function decreases to a specified fraction of the zero frequency value. Often, the specified value is one-half the optical power at...

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of optical filter that is inscribed or "written" into the core of an optical fiber. It consists of a periodic modulation of the refractive index along the length...

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

A property of optical fiber that results from thermal stresses during manufacturing and is defined as the amount of curvature over any specified length of fiber.

A standard for fiber optic data transmission systems being developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and associated working groups that will make fiber optic components from...

A phenomenon in which high optical power, encountering an imperfection in an optical fiber, destroys the fiber's core and causes damage to back-propagate down the fiber. It is caused by classic...

A method of optical fiber coupling in which the fibers are ground down to expose their cores and placed together to allow light pulses to transfer from one to the other.

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as erbium, ytterbium, or neodymium. Fiber lasers generate coherent light through...

A fiber optic cable assembly refers to a complete unit consisting of optical fibers, connectors, protective jackets, and other components that are assembled together to facilitate the transmission of...

A package for an optical fiber or fibers that may include cladding, buffering, strength members and an outer jacket.

A device used to prepare optical fiber end faces; a scribe line made by the cleaver's blade propagates across the fiber, resulting in a clean break.

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 plate consisting of fused optical fibers with both surfaces ground and polished, and having the entrance surface curved to match the image curvature of the input lens system. The plate transmits to...

A weapon launched from a ground-based platform and controlled by a two-way fiber optic data link. The fiber is payed out from a bobbin in the back of the missile.

A fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) is a type of gyroscope that uses the interference of light waves to detect changes in orientation or rotation. It operates based on the principle of the Sagnac effect,...

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

A fiber optic preform is a cylindrical glass rod or tube used as the starting material for manufacturing optical fibers. It serves as the precursor from which optical fibers are drawn. The process of...

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 scanner in which a fiber optic assembly replaces a lens system.

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 sensor is a device that uses optical fibers to detect and measure physical, chemical, biological, or environmental parameters. Unlike traditional electrical sensors, fiber optic sensors...

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 fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic communications to transmit and receive data over optical fibers. It integrates both a...

The face of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) that has a fiber optic sheet attached to its surface. The sheet's fibers are at right angles to the face, allowing the transmittance of the fluorescent trace...

The use of thin flexible glass or plastic fibers as wave guides — or "light pipes" — to channel light from one location to another. Fiber optics is based off of the principle of total...

An optical recording technique that uses light source(s), a beamsplitting cube, light detector(s) and an optical fiber chronically implanted in animal brain to deliver excitation light to neurons...

The distance between the surface of a ferrule and the surface of a fiber end, provided that the ferrule extends above the fiber end. If the fiber end extends above the ferrule surface, the difference...

A microscope in which laser light is delivered through single-mode fibers that replace the pinhole usually used in confocal microscopy. When the Gaussian mode is imaged from the fiber output onto the...

A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the purpose of efficient light transmission. In this configuration, the LED serves...

A fiber-coupled photoconductive antenna (FCPA) is a type of optoelectronic device that combines a photoconductive antenna with optical fibers for the purpose of generating or detecting terahertz...

A method of terminating optical fibers by forming a lens directly on the end of the fiber, eliminating the need for precise end-to-end placement or epoxy sealing in fiber connections.

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.