Photonics Dictionary: B

A piece of glass polished flat on one side, with a pair of polished faces that form an angle close to 180° on the other side, the dividing edge running down the middle of the plate. It is used...

Light interference fringes that can be viewed on a screen near a biprism.

A compound prism composed of two 30° prisms, one of which is partially coated with a suitable opaque metal of high reflecting power. The prisms are cemented with Canada balsam so that the coated...

A Babinet compensator that contains the controlled motion of one prism with respect to the other. This idea was introduced by Jamin.

A relatively hard crystal, highly resistant to excessive energy radiation, that is frequently used for optical windows, prisms and lenses transmitting from the vacuum UV into the IR.

A device (e.g., prisms, lenses, tubes) used to align a beam in a system.

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 beamsplitter is an optical device for dividing a beam into two or more separate beams. A simple beamsplitter may be a very thin sheet of glass inserted in the beam at an angle to divert a portion...

A chamfer ground on the edge of a lens or prism. Bevels are used to prevent chipping or to achieve a mechanical fit.

Designating any instrument in which both eyes can be used to view the image to achieve a stereoscopic effect, or merely to facilitate observation. See also prism binoculars.

A supporting member used to hold optical parts during grinding and polishing. It also describes the assemblage of optical parts on the supporting member; e.g., a block of lenses or block of prisms.

In the optical field, a piece of glass to which a lens or prism is cemented. The unit is ground and polished as a whole to obtain a sharp edge on the finished piece.

A spectrophotometer having a pair of identical collimators with two Glan polarizing prisms, one fixed in azimuth and the other rotatable, set in one collimator. A Brace prism serves as the dispersive...