Photonics Dictionary: C

A light-tight box that receives light from an object or scene and focuses it to form an image on a light-sensitive material or a detector. The camera generally contains a lens of variable aperture...

An instrument consisting of a high-voltage vacuum tube used to form hard x-rays or high-speed ion beams. By partitioning the tube into separate sections, the total voltage is divided.

A plane that lies at right angles to the tube axis that has the deflection center.

A vacuum tube with an electron gun at one end and a fluorescent screen at the other. Electrons emitted from a heated filament are accelerated by a series of annular anodes at progressively higher...

A surface that envelops a bundle of rays or bundle of normals to the wave surface. It may be observed as a hollow, luminous cusp in a turbid medium.

A CCD camera, or charge-coupled device camera, is a type of digital camera that utilizes a CCD image sensor to capture and record images. CCD cameras are widely used in various applications,...

A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images into electronic signals. It is a key component in digital cameras, camcorders,...

A graph used in photography to portray the increase of a film's density as its time of exposure increases.

A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a type of electronic image sensor used in various imaging devices, including digital cameras, camcorders, and scientific instruments. It consists of an integrated...

A charge-injection device (CID) refers to a class of devices that manipulate and detect electrical charge within a semiconductor material. Charge-coupled devices are a specific implementation of this...

The ray that passes through the center of the aperture stop in an optical system. It often is called the principal ray of an oblique beam.

The application of a cine camera in recording the images on a fluorescent screen. When x-rays are used to produce the screen images, this process is referred to as cine-radiography.

The photographic filming of the action of x-ray images recorded on a fluorescent screen by means of large lens apertures and highly sensitive filters.

A mode that is confined by virtue of a lower-index medium surrounding the cladding. Cladding modes, in the terminology of mode descriptors, are equivalent to cladding rays in the terminology of...

A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to capture digital images. CMOS cameras have become ubiquitous due to their low...

A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used to capture visual information and convert it into electrical signals for...

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...

Concave is an adjective used to describe a surface or shape that curves inward or has a hollow or recessed appearance. In the context of geometry or optics, a concave shape is one that curves or...

Concave and convex spherical mirrors are types of curved mirrors that have surfaces shaped like segments of spheres. These mirrors are commonly used in optics for various applications, including...

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....

The dispersion of a light ray striking the surface of a biaxial crystal, in which the resulting rays are reflected in a conical manner.

1. In optics, the bending of light rays toward each other, as by a convex or positive lens. 2. Turning in the eyes to view a near object. 3. In a television picture tube, the crossing of the...

Also known as convergent lens or convex lens. A lens that converges an incident bundle of rays to a focus.

Convex is an adjective used to describe a surface or shape that curves outward, bulges, or has a rounded and outwardly extending appearance. In the context of geometry or optics, a convex shape is...

A system consisting of two or more Geiger-Müller counters, connected in coincidence with their centers on an axis. The only particles recorded are those traversing all counters, near the axis,...

Relative to the Cotton-Mouton effect, the magnetic birefringence constant that, when multiplied by pathlength and the square of the magnetic field strength, yields the phase difference between the...

Recombination of only the light that is correctly dispersed by the first stage of a polychromator through its wide intermediate slit (common during Thomson scattering experimentation), which is...

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...

The photographic record of the diffraction pattern formed when x-rays pass through a crystal.

The analysis of the atomic structures within crystals by means of x-ray diffraction.

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...