Photonics Dictionary

An accelerometer is a sensor or transducer that measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, or in simpler terms, it measures acceleration. Accelerometers are widely used in various...

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...

A small region within a single crystal where the molecules form a perfect lattice.

A cylindrical lens is an optical component that has different curvatures along its two orthogonal axes, resulting in a shape resembling a cylinder. Unlike spherical lenses, which have the same...

Popular process for silicon and polycrystalline production that consists of an alteration of the original state of a substance; thus, single-crystal materials can be used to form a polycrystal.

Diamond turning, also known as diamond machining or diamond cutting, is a precision machining process used to produce high-quality optical surfaces and components with extremely tight tolerances. It...

An electromagnon is a quasiparticle excitation that combines aspects of both magnetism and electric polarization in a crystal lattice. Specifically, it refers to a collective excitation of spins and...

Epitaxial refers to the growth of a crystalline layer on a crystalline substrate in such a way that the orientation of the crystal lattice of the growing layer is related to that of the substrate. In...

Epitaxial deposition is a process used in semiconductor manufacturing and materials science to grow a thin crystalline layer, known as an epitaxial layer, on a substrate. The term epitaxial refers to...

A well controlled thin films technique for growing films with good crystal structure in ultra high vacuum environments at very low deposition rates. Epitaxy methods are well known for the growing of...

A crystalline semiconductor alloy used as the light confinement layer in both single- and double-heterostructure diode lasers.

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...

Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor commonly used in various electronic and optical applications. Germanium crystals...

Harmonic generation refers to a nonlinear optical process in which incoming photons interact with a material and produce new photons at integer multiples of the frequency of the incoming photons....

A method of manufacturing polycrystalline infrared-transmitting optical fiber by heating a single halide crystal billet and forcing it through a die.

A semiconductor device with the property of conducting current more easily in one direction than the other. It has two terminals containing a single crystal of semiconducting material that ranges...

A method of depositing crystalline films one molecular layer at a time, by dipping the substrate into water containing a polymer that forms a single layer of molecular chains on the surface. This...

Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) is a display technology that combines liquid crystal materials with silicon-based semiconductor technology to create high-resolution, high-quality images. LCoS...

A method of growing single crystals in which atoms and molecules from gaseous organic compounds interact and form a layer on a single-crystal substrate.

A light-sensitive resistor in which resistance decreases with increase in light intensity when illuminated. The device consists of a thin single-crystal or polycrystalline film of compound...

A photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) refers to a type of laser diode that emits light from its surface rather than from the edges. Photonic crystals are periodic nanostructures that...

A substance that transmits the infrared, but which is too delicate or fragile to be used in the form of a single crystal. Instead, the pure material is finely ground, pressed to the required shape,...

Sapphire crystal refers to a transparent, single-crystal form of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) known as corundum. It is one of the hardest known materials, second only to diamond on the Mohs scale of...

Sapphire optical fiber is a type of optical fiber made from single-crystal sapphire, which is a form of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) that is highly transparent in the infrared region of the electromagnetic...

A sapphire window refers to a transparent optical component made from sapphire crystal. Sapphire is a single-crystal form of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) that is highly prized for its exceptional optical...

1. In glass, a solid inclusion having a small diameter. 2. A particular, single crystal that, after undergoing the Czochralski method, evolves into large single crystals.

An advanced technique that allows the detection of one molecule within a crystal or a cell through optical excitation. Single-molecule spectroscopy (SMS) can image at subwavelength scales, down to a...

A form of liquid crystal in which flow does not take place in the usual manner. When examined with polarized light, the substance often forms drops that display a series of fine lines. X-ray...

A semiconductor formed by applying a particular single-crystal layer to the specific insulator.

A doubly refracting crystal having a single axis along which there is an absence of double refraction.

In the context of electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, a wafer refers to a thin, flat disk or substrate made of a semiconducting material, usually crystalline silicon. Wafers serve as the...

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for obtaining high-quality diffraction patterns from single crystals. This...