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IRS Dictionary Terms

reconstruction diffraction efficiency
Holographic quantity expressed as the ratio of the reconstructed first-order image to that of the incident reconstructing beam.
spectroscopic flash
The light flash, produced in flash photolysis, that is triggered within a second discharge tube by the third electrode. It...
laser crystal
A laser crystal, also known as an active medium or gain medium, is a solid-state material used in the construction of...
Brownian motion
The behavior of microscopic solid particles suspended in a fluid, first observed by botanist Robert Brown in 1827 as a...
reticle
A reticle, also known as a reticule or graticule, is a pattern or set of markings placed in the focal plane of an optical...
edge detection
In image processing, the location of edges by employing templates that respond to the first or second derivative of...
quantum optics
The area of optics in which quantum theory is used to describe light in discrete units or "quanta" of energy known as...
functional near-infrared spectroscopy
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that measures changes in hemoglobin...
charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a type of electronic image sensor used in various imaging devices, including digital...
Nichols radiometer
An instrument devised by Nichols and Hull for use in the measurement of radiation pressure. The device has two small...
single-photon-decay spectroscopy
A technique for observing the decay of light emissions from sources following their pulsed excitations, based on recording...
working distance
In microscopy, the clear distance between the specimen being viewed and the first optical element of the objective lens.
microstereoscope
A binocular microscope designed for the viewing of stereo pairs. As these stereoscopic image pairs are seen through a...
cadmium lines
The three lines in the spectrum of cadmium that have the purest radiations and that were first used by Michelson to...
perovskite
The term perovskite refers to a specific crystal structure commonly found in various materials. Perovskite structures have a...
echelle grating
A specialized form of diffraction grating consisting of assembled glass plates of equal thickness that resemble a flight of...
gas laser
One of the first lasers to find practical application. Generally, the pumping mechanism is an electric discharge, although...
quantum cascade laser
A quantum cascade laser (QCL) is a type of semiconductor laser that operates based on the principles of quantum mechanics....
run end coding
A digital imaging method whereby the first gray level in the ordered sequence and the position of the first lengths of all...
metabolic imaging
Metabolic imaging refers to the visualization and quantification of metabolic processes within living organisms, tissues, or...
Koehler illumination
A two-stage illuminating system for a microscope in which the source is imaged in the aperture of the substage condenser by...
qubit
A qubit, short for quantum bit, is the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing and quantum information...
first-surface mirror
objective
The optical element that receives light from the object and forms the first or primary image in telescopes and microscopes....
stress-applying part
In polarization-preserving optical fibers, the element used to induce birefringence. The SAP is highly doped to provide a...
Cooper pairs
The coupled pairs of electrons that carry supercurrents through the body of a superconductor, relative to a coherent...
thermophotovoltaic
Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) refers to a technology that converts heat energy into electricity using the principles of...
photodetector
A photodetector, also known as a photosensor or photodiode, is a device that detects and converts light into an electrical...
primary spectrum
The first-order spectrum formed by a diffraction grating.
modified chemical vapor deposition
Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is a technique used in the fabrication of optical fibers. It is a specialized form...
cascade shower
A shower of cosmic rays whereby a high-energy electron produces one or more photons that convert into electron pairs, the...
silicon photodiode
A silicon photodiode is a semiconductor device that converts light into an electrical current. It is a type of photodetector...
rhomboid prism
A reflecting prism that is rhomboidal in shape. It has two parallel transmitting faces, and two parallel reflecting faces;...
germanium crystal
Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor...
first-order optics
infrared detector
An infrared detector is a device that is used to detect and measure infrared radiation, which lies beyond the visible...
autocollimator
An autocollimator is an optical instrument used for measuring small angular deviations with high precision. It operates on...
Kerr effect
The Kerr effect, named after the physicist John Kerr who first observed it in 1875, is a nonlinear optical phenomenon where...
laser
A laser, which stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," is a device that produces coherent and...
APD detector
An APD detector, or avalanche photodiode detector, is a type of photodetector used to detect light or optical signals by...
rainbow hologram
Essentially, a hologram of a hologram, in which the first-generation hologram is masked with a narrow slit. During image...
intensity interferometer
An interferometer that functions by first detecting the light striking each aperture and then combining the two detector...
window
1. A piece of glass with plane parallel surfaces used to admit light into an optical system and to exclude dirt and...
Förster resonance energy transfer
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a mechanism describing the transfer of energy between two closely spaced...
stiction
In positioning, the friction that prevents immediate motion when force is first applied to a body or surface at rest.
gain
Also known as amplification. 1. The increase in a signal that is transmitted from one point to another through an amplifier....
fluorescent whitening agents
Agents used for testing light sources and natural daylight with visual and instrumental assessment using a set of white...
generating
A rapid roughing process for the quick removal of glass, the first step in manufacture of a curved lens surface. It is...
surface quality
The specification of allowable flaws in a surface by comparison to reference standards of quality. Two graded sets of...
piezo worm
A piezoelectric translator that moves up and down a spindle like a caterpillar. It clamps itself at one end, expands, clamps...
Rayleigh criterion of resolving power
When a lens system with a circular aperture is free of aberrations, the image of a point object will appear as a disc of...
near-infrared camera
A near-infrared (NIR) camera is an imaging device designed to capture images in the near-infrared region of the...
stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy
Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) is a superresolution microscopy technique that enables imaging of...
CCD image sensor
A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images...
Bessel functions
Two formulas used in diffractometer analysis, the first giving the individual diffraction patterns of each aperture, the...
transfer blocking
A process used to control thickness and parallelism precisely during the production of plane-parallel plates. Elements are...
first window
The spectral transmission window in silica-based fibers between 830 and 850 nm.
metameric colors
Pairs of color stimuli that exhibit metamerism as described by colorimetry. Also known as metameters.
first-side toric
The process of grinding the toric surface of a single vision sphero-cylindrical lens.
spurious resolution
A phenomenon that causes the details in an image to appear at a spatial frequency higher than that at which the contrast...
quasi-linear theory
The first nonlinear theory in plasma physics that details the time and space evolution of plasma wave instability from a...
third-order theory
Calculations of lens aberrations whereby the first two terms of the series expansion are the only ones employed....
quantum wire
A narrow channel created by cleaving a crystal made of alternating layers of gallium arsenide and aluminum gallium arsenide,...
near-field holography
A lithography method that allows the transfer of fine-pitch gratings from a phase mask into photoresist. The exposure takes...
Q-switched pulse
A laser output that occurs when the cavity resonator Q is first kept very low, using rotating mirrors or saturable...
image motion compensation
The active control of various aspects (optical element position, airspace thickness, etc.) of an optical system that...
chirped-pulse amplification
Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique used in laser physics to amplify ultrashort laser pulses to high energies...
first principal point
The principal point of a lens relative to the object space.
MSM photodiode
A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode is a type of photodetector that consists of metal electrodes on a semiconductor...
contextual analysis
In optical character recognition systems, the identification of a character facilitated by means of known factors governing...
near-infrared spectroscopy
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive analytical technique that uses the near-infrared region of the...
Porro prism erecting system
The arrangement of two Porro prisms so that the inverted image formed by certain types of optical instruments is the same as...
Gaussian optics
1. That branch of optics that illustrates the theory in which q is substituted for sin q in Snell's law. Effective results...
time constant
The amount of time needed for a detector signal or electronic circuit to reach 63 percent of its final value after a fixed...
threshold voltage
1. Voltage at which a PN junction begins to pass a current. 2. In a solid-state lamp, the voltage at which light is first...
maser
An acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Predecessor to the laser, the maser or...
run length coding
A digital imaging method whereby the first gray level of each sequential point-by-point sample and its position in the...
Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering is a phenomenon that occurs when light waves interact with particles or molecules that are much smaller...
dialyte
An airspaced achromatic doublet telescope objective.
nodal testing
The measurement of first- and higher order properties of a lens and its formed image, including effective focal length, back...
Mangin mirror
A double-surfaced catadioptric spherical mirror whose spherical first surface consists of a negative meniscus (concave) lens...
grating beamsplitter
A grating beamsplitter is an optical device that utilizes the principles of diffraction to split a beam of light into...
first-order spectrum
The separate spectral lines formed by a diffraction grating that are characterized by one wavelength difference in path...
InGaAs photodiode
An InGaAs photodiode refers to a photodetector device that is constructed using a semiconductor material composed of a...
acoustical holography
The optical reconstruction of image information contained in a sound field. First the diffraction pattern, formed by an...
oil-immersion objective
A form of high-power microscope objective where the space between the object and the first element is filled with an oil...
avalanche photodiode
A device that utilizes avalanche multiplication of photocurrent by means of hole-electrons created by absorbed photons. When...
first-order theory
 crosshairs
indium
Metal used in components of the crystalline semiconductor alloys indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), indium gallium arsenide...
photodiode detector
A photodiode detector is a semiconductor device that converts light into an electrical current. It operates based on the...
Clayden effect
The desensitization of the first photographic exposure after it has been subjected to high-intensity radiation.
internal transmittance
The ratio of the radiant power transmitted to the second surface of a medium to the corresponding radiant power that has...
modulation transfer function analysis/measurement equipment
MTF analysis/measurement equipment refers to instruments and tools used to measure and analyze the modulation transfer...
near-infrared spectrometer
A near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer is an analytical instrument used to measure the absorption, transmission, or reflection...
bilinear interpolation
It is often necessary to estimate the value of what a pixel would be between neighboring pixels. This is accomplished by...
Mach-Zehnder interferometer
A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of...
object distance
The distance between the object and the cornea, or the first surface of the objective in an optical device.
reduced focal length
The ratio of the first focal length of a lens to the refractive index of the medium containing the incident light; the ratio...
first-side meniscus
The process of grinding the concave surface of a single-vision spherical lens.
laser-triggered switching
A process by which the ionizing capabilities of a laser beam are used to break initiate conduction between pairs of...
cathode-ray tube
A vacuum tube with an electron gun at one end and a fluorescent screen at the other. Electrons emitted from a heated...
electron image tube
A cathode-ray tube that increases the brightness or size of an image or forms a visible image from invisible radiation. The...
monochromator
A monochromator is an optical instrument used to isolate and select a narrow range of wavelengths from a broader spectrum of...
Airy disc
The central peak (including everything interior to the first zero or dark ring) of the focal diffraction pattern of a...
quantum
The term quantum refers to the fundamental unit or discrete amount of a physical quantity involved in interactions at the...
sine condition
First stated by Abbe, condition states that the ratio of input and output angles, from object point to image point, for two...
cascade method
A heterochromatic photometric process using successive comparison of similar chromaticities and the calculation of relative...
mercury vapor light source
A lamp that has mercury in a tube or bulb that has first been evacuated. The electricity travels through the vapor between...
Casimir force
The Casimir force is a quantum phenomenon that results in an attractive force between two closely spaced uncharged...
PIN photodiode
A PIN photodiode is a type of photodetector or semiconductor device used to convert light signals into electrical signals....
cross dispersion
Recombination of only the light that is correctly dispersed by the first stage of a polychromator through its wide...
photoreflectance
A noncontact form of electromodulation in which modulation of the electric field is caused by photo-excited electron-hole...
optogenetics
A discipline that combines optics and genetics to enable the use of light to stimulate and control cells in living tissue,...
paraxial
Characteristic of optical analyses that are limited to infinitesimally small apertures. Also called first-order or Gaussian...
magneto-optics
Magneto-optics refers to the study and manipulation of the interaction between magnetic fields and light (electromagnetic...
dispersion
Dispersion refers to the phenomenon where different wavelengths (colors) of light travel at different speeds when passing...

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