Photonics Dictionary: B

Fraction of light counter propagating collinear with the incident source. Processes considering backscattering are Raman, Brillouin, Rayleigh and Mie.

The law stating that the amount of chemical change produced is proportional to the amount of light absorbed. Actually, the change is also dependent on the intensity of light -- a fact named the...

Backscatter refers to the phenomenon in which radiation or waves are scattered backward, opposite to the direction of the incident beam. This occurs when the incident radiation encounters a target or...

A light-harvesting protein found in the purple membrane of a micro-organism called Halobacterium halobium. The protein undergoes a photocycle that involves several binary photochemical reactions that...

The emission of a photon by the return of an excited carrier from the conduction band to the valence band of a semiconductor along a radiative recombination path. The resulting photoluminescence...

A crystalline material used in piezoelectric devices.

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It involves measuring and visualizing how the optical power or intensity is...

A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or light beam. The goal is to transform the incoming beam into a desired shape...

A defect on or in an optical element that does not appreciably impair the function of the surface.

A type of piezoelectric translator that uses two thin strips of piezoelectric material, one expanding while the other contracts, to produce movement.

Also called proximity focus image intensifier. A compact image intensifier that utilizes a microchannel plate intensification stage. This is an in-line device that does not invert the image.

An instrument for measuring the brightness (luminance) of a scene. It may be a spot meter, covering an area of a degree or less, or an averaging meter, covering a broad area of the scene. Brightness...

A sound wave that travels through a piezoelectric material.