Photonics Dictionary

A laser having a rod that is a stacked array of discs immersed in a transparent flowing coolant fluid. In this way, the cooling rate is increased, the temperature gradients are basically parallel to...

A diverging lens is a type of lens that causes parallel rays of light to spread out or diverge. It is thinner in the center than at the edges and is commonly referred to as a concave lens. The most...

A pair of long, slender parallel apertures used in experiments on diffraction and interference.

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 form of prism invented by H.W. Dove. It resembles half of a common right-angle prism in which a ray entering parallel to the hypotenuse face is reflected internally at that face and emerges...

An image-processing device that scans in a straight line parallel to the axis of a rotating cylinder to which the material to be recorded is affixed.

Process for growth of solar cells that results in rectangular shapes consisting of many interconnected cells in a series or series-parallel arrangement. EFG cells show increased efficiency with...

The entrance slit, also known simply as the slit, is an essential component in optical instruments such as spectrometers and monochromators. It is a narrow opening or aperture through which light...

A telescope stand equipped with a polar axis that can be set parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation and a declination axis that is at right angles to the polar axis. If the telescope is turned at a...

An etalon is an optical device that consists of two parallel reflecting surfaces separated by a precise and known distance. It operates based on the principle of optical interference and is used to...

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...

The ratio of the power of a plane-polarized beam that is transmitted through a polarizer placed in its path with its polarizing axis parallel to the beam's plane, as compared with the transmitted...

An optical resonator in which feedback is accomplished by two parallel planes. In diode lasers, the planes are obtained by cleaving, polishing, etching, etc.

A multiple-beam interferometer, usually consisting of two flat plates, with high reflective ability. The plates are set parallel to one another by spacers so that lightwaves may bounce back and forth...

A device in which slab geometry internally compensates for thermal-optic distortion; the solid host material -- glass or Nd:YAG -- is in the form of a rectangular slab with plane parallel faces. The...

Describes incident radiation propagating parallel to an externally applied magnetic field in magneto-optical experimentation.

In microscopy, the measured distance between theoretical parallel lines that are drawn tangent to the particle profile and perpendicular to the ocular scale.

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...

The focal length of a lens is the distance between the lens's optical center (or principal point) and the image sensor or film when the lens is focused at infinity. In simple terms, it is the...

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

A coil used to focus an electron beam by the generation of a magnetic field parallel to the beam.

A hologram formed by the recording of a plane object situated in the focal plane of a lens so that each object gives rise to a parallel beam of light incident on the plate. A collimated reference...

The multiple beam form of Brewster's fringes formed when the two plane-parallel plates have high-reflecting surfaces.

A laser system consisting of a planar PN junction within a single crystal of gallium arsenide. The pair of parallel, semireflective end faces produces a Fabry-Perot resonant cavity, whereas the other...

A grating beamsplitter is an optical device that utilizes the principles of diffraction to split a beam of light into multiple beams, often redirecting them at specific angles. It is based on the...

A wave in which energy is focused near a boundary separating materials having different properties. Propagation of the wave is in a direction parallel to the boundary.

A direct-vision prism made in one piece that can be used only in parallel light.

Also known as HCS, an analytical method designed to collect statistically relevant amounts of quantitative data on many parallel cell populations or processes within cells through the combination of...

A method of measuring flow velocity by seeding the flow with neutrally buoyant particles and using a pulsed laser to holographically record particle displacement during a short time period. An...

A term applied to rays that possess the same focal point, which may be infinity, thereby meaning that the rays are parallel.

The parallel orientation of the molecular axes of the nematic molecules in a nematic crystal, relative to the electrode plates.

An eyepiece having a special prism arrangement linked to a micrometer screw to allow reading of the angular relations between the two prism segments to be varied. When the prism faces are parallel,...

1. A thin parallel plate of material that transmits in the infrared region. See infrared optical material. 2. A spectral region (of the infrared) in which the atmosphere transmits.

A computer-generated kinoform used for data processing because of its use of incoherent light and its wide field of view, which facilitates parallel processing of two-dimensional data.

A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a miniaturized device that integrates various laboratory functions and capabilities onto a single, compact chip. Also known as microfluidic devices, lab-on-a-chip systems are...

A dark band that may appear in the field of crossed Nicol prisms with a powerful source such as the sun because the light is not strictly parallel and is not extinguished immediately.

A laser diode module is a compact device that incorporates a laser diode, optics, and often other components into a single package. These modules are designed to provide a convenient and efficient...

The laser output refers to the generated and emitted light produced by a laser system. This output is characterized by several key properties that distinguish lasers from other light sources. These...

A method of measuring microbending losses in optical fiber by sandwiching a length of fiber between two parallel plates, with 150-grit sandpaper on the bottom plate. Different weights are placed on...

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses are commonly used in optical systems, such as cameras, telescopes,...

An ophthalmic instrument used to measure the magnitude and direction of the maximum and minimum powers of a spectacle lens, and mark the optical center of the lens by an ink dot. When the lens to be...