Photonics Dictionary: K

A simple form of astronomical telescope that uses a fixed objective and a focusable eyepiece. The objective forms an intermediate image in the instrument, resulting in an image that appears upside...

A cathode-ray tube that serves as a picture tube in a television receiver. The signal representing the picture intensity is transmitted to the electron gun grid so that the beam intensity varies with...

An imaging device originally created to image whole mouse brain volumes at microscopic resolution. The main component of the instrument is an automated microtome and microscope capable of producing...

In an interlaced scanning electro-optical system such as television, the system resolution will be less than the number of active scan lines because of the random phase nature of the object being...

The SI unit of temperature equal to 1°C. See absolute temperature scale.

The Kerr effect, named after the physicist John Kerr who first observed it in 1875, is a nonlinear optical phenomenon where the refractive index of a material changes in response to an applied...

A Kerr soliton refers to a specific type of soliton, a self-reinforcing wave packet, that arises in nonlinear optical systems due to the Kerr effect. The Kerr effect is the phenomenon where the...

A type of geometrical distortion that brings about a trapezoidal display of a nominally rectangular picture. Usually produced when a picture is projected abnormally to the screen.

An array of spectral lines formed when a beam of electrons, striking a crystalline solid, is scattered. It is used in the analysis of the crystal structure.

A thermionic tube that has a velocity-modulated electron stream and that may be used as a microwave amplifier or oscillator.

A two-stage illuminating system for a microscope in which the source is imaged in the aperture of the substage condenser by an auxiliary condenser, and the substage condenser in turn forms an image...

A two-flux theory in which the radiation is assumed to be composed of two oppositely directed radiation fluxes through a continuous medium. The theory has been widely used to relate the total diffuse...