Photonics Dictionary

Optical fibers fused together to form a solid, vacuum-tight assembly in the form of a slab or rod. Discs or rectangular shapes having ground and polished surfaces perpendicular to the fiber lengths...

Fused quartz and silica are closely related materials, both composed primarily of silicon dioxide (SiO2), but they are produced through different manufacturing processes and have distinct properties...

Glass consisting of almost pure silicon dioxide (SiO2). Also called vitreous silica. Frequently used in optical fibers and windows.

Light diffracted by a solid (usually quartz in crystal or fused form) traversed by acoustic waves. If the ultrasonic wavelength is larger than the diameter of the light beam, the diffraction orders...

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...

An astronomical mirror, also known as a telescope mirror or primary mirror, is a key component of a reflecting telescope. It serves as the primary optical element responsible for gathering and...

1. A group of optical fibers that are fused and then treated to produce a vacuum-tight optical fiber cone or plate. 2. An artificial crystal in its raw state, after generation but prior to cutting or...

A piece of glass with a high refractive index that is fused to the major blank.

The concave portion of a surface, formed on a blank, on which the disk of higher refractive glass will be fused to form a multifocal spectacle lens.

A solid with a structure that exhibits a basically symmetrical and geometrical arrangement. A crystal may already possess this structure, or it may acquire it through mechanical means. More than 50...

An optical diffuser is an optical component or material designed to scatter or diffuse light that passes through it. It is used to create a more even or uniform illumination, reduce glare, or soften...

In printing, a translucent screen used with lenses to provide an even distribution of diffused light.

A piece of glass that eventually becomes the bifocal segment as it appears prior to being fused to the blank.

A defect of a binocular instrument causing two images to be seen separately instead of being fused. It is caused when the optical axes of the two telescopes are not parallel. In minor cases, the eyes...

A small xenon-filled tube with metal electrodes fused into the ends. The gas flashes brilliantly when a condenser is discharged through the tube. The duration of the flash is primarily dependent upon...

That branch of science involved in the study and utilization of the motion, emissions and behaviors of currents of electrical energy flowing through gases, vacuums, semiconductors and conductors, not...

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...

Fluorescent proteins are proteins that exhibit the property of fluorescence, which is the ability to absorb light at a specific wavelength and emit light at a longer wavelength. These proteins are...

A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or phosphoric oxides. Common window or bottle glass is a mixture of soda,...

Designed to observe objects below the surface of water. Not to be confused with hygroscopic.

An absorbing coating medium between fibers, used in some fused fiber optic plates to absorb unwanted light. Such coatings are sometimes called EMA (extramural absorption).

Laser sintering is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that involves using a laser to selectively fuse powdered materials, typically polymers or metals, layer by layer, to create...

Light diffusion refers to the process by which light is scattered or spread out in various directions as it interacts with a medium or material. Unlike direct transmission through a transparent...

A blank to which a piece of glass of a different refractive index will be fused to form a multifocal lens.

An array of optically distinct fibers that are fused into one strand. They are used to keep the resolution efficiency of the smaller, single fibers and eliminate difficulty in handling. Their...

The imaginary line passing through both the centers of curvatures of the optical surfaces of a lens or mirror; the optical centerline for all the centers of an optical element(s) of an optical...

Optical materials refer to substances or compounds specifically chosen for their optical properties and used in the fabrication of optical components and systems. These materials are characterized by...

Low-insertion-loss fiber coupler fabricated from a sheet of light-sensitive material laminated onto a fused quartz substrate and exposed through a suitable mask. After development of the plastic...

The direct cladding used for fused silica cores to create large numerical aperture fibers and used as overcoats to glass-clad fibers to reduce microbend loss and increase mechanical protection.

See crystal quartz; fused quartz.

A device that uses nematic liquid crystals sandwiched between fused silica substrates to change the phase of polarized light. The cell is tunable from half-wave to zero retardation because variation...

In multifocal spectacles, a term used to denote glass with a high refractive index that has been fused to the blank and ground to a curvature, resulting in added power.

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that belongs to the powder bed fusion category. SLM is primarily used for metal additive manufacturing, where...

An abundant material found in the form of quartz and agate and as one of the major constituents of sand. The silicates of sodium, calcium, and other metals can be readily fused, and on cooling do not...

Ultraviolet (UV) fiber optics refers to optical fibers that are designed and optimized for the transmission of ultraviolet light, which is electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than...