Photonics Dictionary

Camera Link HS (high speed) is a standard developed for high-speed digital data transmission in machine vision and industrial imaging applications. It is an evolution of the original Camera Link...

A system that generally uses a photodetector to decode punched cards for information, or for input to a computer, by sensing the light transmitted through the punched holes.

The optical phenomenon in which right circularly polarized light transmitted by an active medium travels at a different velocity than that of left circularly polarized light.

A television system that does not broadcast television signals but transmits them over a closed circuit.

CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision and industrial imaging applications. It enables high-speed data...

Glass that transmits near-ultraviolet radiation but is opaque in the visible region. Also known as woods glass.

A fiber optic communications system that works on the principles of homodyning or heterodyning. The transmitting laser produces an optical wave that is modulated in amplitude, phase or frequency by...

A coherent fiber bundle (CFB), also known as a coherent fiber optic bundle, is an assembly of multiple optical fibers arranged in a specific geometric pattern to maintain the spatial coherence of...

A compound prism consisting of an assembly of small prisms cemented together that is used in a coincidence rangefinder to transmit the images from the two objectives to a single eyepiece for viewing.

A mirror whose coating serves to reflect visible radiation while transmitting the infrared.

An instrument that uses a beam of light to scan a color transparency, and three differently filtered photosensors to record the transmitted beam, as a means of producing three exposed separation...

A colorimeter is a device used to measure and quantify the color characteristics of an object or a light source. It provides objective and standardized color information, typically expressed in terms...

1. A solid figure whose base is a circle and whose sides taper upward evenly to a point or apex. Light rays diverging from or converging upon a point are sometimes referred to as a cone of light. 2....

Hardware installed on fiber cable ends to provide cable attachment to a transmitter, receiver or other cable. Usually a device that can be connected and disconnected repeatedly.

Laser surgery by means of a low-power laser system using a synthetic sapphire scalpel that transmits the laser light while in direct contact with the tissue.

A compound prism formed by cementing together two 30° prisms, one of right-handed and one of left-handed quartz. It has good ultraviolet-transmitting qualities and no double refraction.

A prism formed by dividing a Nicol prism in a plane parallel to the path of vibration of the transmitted light and taking out the wedge-shaped piece. After the pieces are rejoined, the planes of...

The fraction of available output from a radiant source that is coupled and transmitted by an optical fiber.

The positioning of two Nicol prisms so that their axes are at right angles to each other. With this arrangement, light transmitted by one prism will not be transmitted by the other.

The naturally occurring crystalline form of silicon dioxide. It is slightly birefringent and exhibits rotary dispersion of light rays transmitted along the crystal axis, both right-hand and left-hand...

1. In detector technology, the long wavelength at which detector response falls to a set percentage (usually 20 or 50 percent). 2. In fiber optics, the shortest wavelength at which a fiber transmits...

Adhering material used to glue optical components that transmit in the infrared. It is easily dissolved by acetone.

Able to rotate the plane of polarization of a transmitted, plane-polarized light beam clockwise as seen by a viewer looking in the same direction as the traveling light. Also called dextrorotary; the...

A mirror coated to reflect cold (white) light while transmitting hot (infrared) energy.

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...

A polarizer that consists of dichroic polarizing material embedded in a plastic sheet, and that transmits light that is almost completely plane polarized with an intensity that is half that of the...

A diffraction grating is an optical component consisting of a surface with a periodic structure of equally spaced, parallel grooves or rulings. These rulings act as an array of closely spaced slits...

The logarithm of the reciprocal of diffuse transmittance. Diffuse density results when a sample is diffusely illuminated.

Digital signal processing (DSP) refers to the manipulation and analysis of signals, which are representations of physical quantities that vary over time or space. In the context of DSP, these signals...

A step-by-step method of reducing the amount of data in a digital video signal to transmit or store a high-quality image. The digitized picture is analyzed, and fine detail and redundant pixels,...

The branch of optics that deals with the study of the refraction of light, particularly by the transmitting medium of the eye, and by lenses.

A coupling unit that enables more than one transmitter to operate at the same time or separately on the same antenna.

A complex filter that uses polarization and interference to transmit light that is nearly monochromatic.

A distributed feedback laser (DFB laser) is a type of semiconductor laser diode designed to emit coherent, narrow-bandwidth light with precise control over the wavelength. It achieves this through a...

A signal traveling from transmitter to receiver that has an altered frequency due to the Doppler effect.

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....

In data communications, the simultaneous operation of a circuit in both directions is known as full duplex; if only one transmitter can send at a time, the system is called half duplex.

An edge-emitting light-emitting diode is a type of LED structure where light emission occurs primarily along the edge of the semiconductor chip rather than from the surface. Edge-emitting LEDs are...

In photoelectric sensing, the portion of the transmitted beam that actually functions in the system; the diameter of the beam that determines the presence or absence of an object by being blocked or...

A type of modulation spectroscopy that measures spectral reflectance or transmittance changes induced by applying a perturbing electric field. It can be performed in contactless modes with no special...