Photonics Dictionary

A microscope to which a beamsplitter and illuminated reticle have been added to measure the radius of curvature of a spherical surface by locating both surface and center and calculating the distance...

A beamsplitter is an optical device used to divide a beam of light into two or more separate beams, typically by reflecting a portion of the incident light while transmitting the remainder....

A glass block that produces stationary fringes in the region crossed by incident light beams.

An experimental lens used to produce interference fringes. A positive lens is cut into halves along its center, and the halves are separated. This produces a double image of a slit source set...

A technique used in integrated optics where a groove is cut on a substrate surface and covered by a thin film to facilitate the construction of filters, resonators, beamsplitters and grating couplers...

A Dammann grating is a type of diffractive optical element (DOE) used to create an array of equally spaced, uniform-intensity spots or beams. It is named after its inventor, Dr. Herbert Dammann. The...

A dichroic coating, also known as a dichroic filter or dichroic mirror, is an optical coating designed to selectively transmit or reflect certain wavelengths of light while simultaneously absorbing...

A dichroic mirror, also known as a dichroic beamsplitter or interference filter beamsplitter, is an optical device that selectively reflects or transmits light based on its wavelength. Dichroic...

Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast microscopy, is an optical imaging technique used in microscopy to enhance the contrast of transparent...

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.

A spectrophotometer in which the beam emitted by the radiation source is split into beams that travel through the sample and a reference cell and are subsequently recombined to fall on the detector....

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,...

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...

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...

Fizeau fringes are interference fringes observed in an interferometer, specifically in a Fizeau interferometer. The Fizeau interferometer is named after the French physicist Armand Fizeau, who...

A type of interferometer noted for producing narrow multiple-beam interference fringes. As a result, when compared with the Twyman-Green, the Fizeau interferometer has fewer optical components, does...

A fiber optic device that uses a HeNe laser, beamsplitter, monochromator and photomultiplier to detect trace levels of chemicals and viruses in samples inside or outside the body.

An instrument using a Michelson interferometer, a beamsplitter, two plane mirrors and a detector to give Fourier analysis of the detector signal to provide the desired spectrum.

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption or emission of a solid, liquid, or gas sample. It operates based...

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 holographic camera, also known as a holographic imaging system or holographic recorder, is a specialized device used to capture 3D holographic images of objects or scenes. Unlike conventional...

A series of permanent holograms in dichromated gelatin formed by opening total page-composer apertures and setting a point source of light in each storage location. It performs much like a...

Infrared optics refer to optical components and systems designed to manipulate and control infrared (IR) light, which lies beyond the visible spectrum. These components are crucial for various...

1. The additive process whereby the amplitudes of two or more overlapping waves are systematically attenuated and reinforced. 2. The process whereby a given wave is split into two or more waves by,...

A special form of microscope that utilizes interference for observing and measuring the phase and optical thickness in completely transparent objects and specimen. The object is placed in one beam...

An instrument that employs the interference of lightwaves to measure the accuracy of optical surfaces; it can measure a length in terms of the length of a wave of light by using interference...

Laser optics refers to a broad category of optical components and systems designed for manipulating and controlling laser light. Laser optics play a crucial role in shaping the characteristics of...

A lateral shearing interferometer is an optical device used in interferometry to measure phase differences between two beams of light. Interferometry is a technique that combines and analyzes...

Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly polarized light signals in various applications, such as optical...

A Michelson-type interference microscope used to produce interference patterns of reflective specimens through the interference between light reflected by the specimen and that reflected by a...

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of light. It is named after the physicists Ludwig Mach and Ludwig Zehnder, who...

A thin layer of metal deposited on the surface of a substrate. The film may serve as a reflector, beamsplitter, neutral density filter or electromagnetic interference filter.

A specially designed microscope for observing the etched surface of a polished metal specimen. The specimen is often laid face down on a horizontal stage and observed from beneath, the illumination...

Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level. These components are miniaturized optical elements that manipulate light at a...

A hologram formed by reconstruction of multicolor wavefronts. The system used to produce the hologram is designed to combine the different colored wavefronts of the separate illuminating sources, and...

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path difference to create interference between split optical wavefronts. The...

E.I. duPont's trade name for a polyester film. The most practical beamsplitter for use beyond the 15-µm wavelength because of its high efficiency. It exhibits high visible transmission, allowing...

An electro-optical infrared tracker consisting of a beamsplitter, an illuminating source, an image dissector tube and an electronics unit, that automatically acquires and tracks particular eye...

An instrument used to test lenses by utilizing the optical transfer function. It consists of a HeNe laser, a beamsplitter and two mirrors.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics and biomedical research to obtain high-resolution, cross-sectional images of biological tissues. An OCT imaging...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique used in medical and scientific fields to capture high-resolution, cross-sectional images of biological tissues. It provides...

An optical combiner, in the context of optics and display technologies, refers to a device or component that combines multiple optical signals or images into a single output. The purpose of an...

One or more optical elements – typically cemented together - in an optical system that are treated as a single group; e.g., a beamsplitter, or a cemented doublet or triplet.

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...

1. The direct storage of data as bits in memory using optical systems and properties. The memory makes use of a laser beam that is divided by a beamsplitter and controlled by a modulator and a...

A thin, stretched plastic membrane cemented to a rigid supporting ring. It may be coated to act as a beamsplitter, for example, in a color camera; it is so thin that no perceptible image doubling...

In optics and photolithography, a phase mask refers to a device that modifies the phase of light waves passing through it. The phase mask is used to control the spatial distribution of the light's...

A still or motion-picture camera designed to photograph through a microscope. Photomicrographic equipment usually contains a beamsplitter or other means for simultaneously viewing, orienting and...