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NSF Dictionary Terms

angular spectrum approach
The angular spectrum approach is a mathematical and computational technique used in the field of optics to analyze and simulate the propagation of optical waves, particularly in the context of wave optics and diffraction. This approach is based on...
surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an analytical technique that combines the principles of Raman spectroscopy...
CCD camera
A CCD camera, or charge-coupled device camera, is a type of digital camera that utilizes a CCD image sensor to capture and...
transfer function
The complex function, H(f), equal to the ratio of the output to input of the device as a function of frequency. The...
diffuse modulation transfer function
Modulation transfer function of an optical element when used for transporting images from a lambertian source such as...
CMOS image sensor
A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used...
beam shaper
A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or...
cross section
Calculation of the probability of an interaction between two types of particles, such as light absorption, excitation or...
lithography
Lithography is a key process used in microfabrication and semiconductor manufacturing to create intricate patterns on the...
donor
An impurity in a material that is capable of inducing electrical conduction in that material by transferring an electron to...
linear energy transfer
The transfer of energy lost by radiation to the body, relative to the loss of energy per unit of path traveled.
flowmeter
A flowmeter is a device used to measure the flow rate or quantity of a fluid passing through a particular point in a system....
fiber bandwidth
The lowest frequency at which the magnitude of the fiber transfer function decreases to a specified fraction of the zero...
deep ultraviolet
Deep ultraviolet (DUV or deep-UV) refers to a specific range of ultraviolet light with shorter wavelengths than those in the...
gauze technique
The masking of all openings of an optical transform -- except the hole at the symmetrical center -- with a thin wire gauze...
mask
1. A framelike structure that serves to restrict the viewing area of the screen when placed before a television picture...
optical design software
Optical design software refers to specialized computer programs used by optical engineers, physicists, and designers to...
Langmuir-Blodgett technique
A method of depositing crystalline films one molecular layer at a time, by dipping the substrate into water containing a...
fiber-coupled LED
A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the...
asynchronous transfer mode
A method of data multiplexing that can provide large, instantaneous bandwidths for busy traffic while permitting slow...
plasmon ion-assisted deposition
Plasmon ion-assisted deposition (PIAD) is a technique used in thin-film deposition processes, particularly in the production...
optical tweezers
Optical tweezers refer to a scientific instrument that uses the pressure of laser light to trap and manipulate microscopic...
inverse Compton effect
The interaction between a photon and an energetic electron, caused by collision, that transfers energy from the electron to...
free-carrier absorption
The phenomenon whereby an electron within a band absorbs radiation by transferring from a low-energy level to an empty...
optical transfer function
The function that characterizes the quality of an optical system by denoting the modulation and spatial phase shift of the...
televise
To transform a picture or image field into a television signal for transmission.
graphene
Graphene is a two-dimensional allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal...
modulation transfer function analysis/measurement equipment
MTF analysis/measurement equipment refers to instruments and tools used to measure and analyze the modulation transfer...
feature extraction
In image processing and machine vision, the process in which an initial measurement pattern or some subsequence of...
affine transformation
Transformation of an image, such as a change in position or scale, that does not alter the linearity of the original image.
photodielectric effect
The effect, present in particular phosphors, that is defined as a transformation in the dielectric constant of a material...
Förster resonance energy transfer
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a mechanism describing the transfer of energy between two closely spaced...
optical correlator
A device incorporating a spatial light modulator and a reference filter; used for matching an input optical waveform or...
linear receive optics
Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly...
CMOS camera
A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to...
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is an international standard for medical imaging created by both the...
directed energy
Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often...
optical autocorrelator
An instrument used to test lenses by utilizing the optical transfer function. It consists of a HeNe laser, a beamsplitter...
transfer blocking
A process used to control thickness and parallelism precisely during the production of plane-parallel plates. Elements are...
stimulated Brillouin scattering
In Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS), an incident photon (usually laser light) interacts with acoustic phonons in a...
electromagnetic lens
An electron lens consisting of a homogeneous axial electric field and a magnetic field used in high-quality image tubes for...
modulation transfer function
Also called sine wave response and contrast transfer function. The modulation transfer function is the ratio of the...
phase mask
In optics and photolithography, a phase mask refers to a device that modifies the phase of light waves passing through it....
computer-generated hologram
A computer-generated hologram (CGH) is a holographic image produced using computational methods and algorithms, rather than...
light valve
With respect to display systems, a device that uses an independent light source and a control-layer medium, the active...
transducer
A transducer is a device or component that converts one form of energy into another. It is commonly used in various fields,...
Franck-Condon principle
The principle that electronic energy transitions occur at such speeds that the nuclei of the atoms in the molecular system...
nonlinear optical processing
Derivative of the half-tone screen process involving the fabrication of a binary pulse-width modulated copy of the...
fast Fourier transform
electron-beam lithography system
An electron-beam lithography (EBL) system is a sophisticated nanofabrication tool used in the semiconductor industry and...
transfer gate
A single long gate electrode that transfers the line of charge packets to the transport shift register in a charge-coupled...
revolving lens fiber optic scanner
A sequential scanning device, utilizing a revolving lens, in which the cathode-ray tube image is transformed into a circle...
bit boundary block transfer
A data transfer function that moves a rectangular group of pixels between bit maps. Often used in displaying cursors and...
replicated optics
Optical components, usually reflectors, produced using proprietary techniques that transfer the precision of a master to a...
transfer rate
The rate at which data can be read from a CD-ROM.
absorption
The transfer of energy from an incident electromagnetic energy field with wavelength or frequency to an atomic or molecular...
lensless Fourier transform hologram
A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording,...
calorescence
The production of visible light by infrared radiation whereby the light is produced by heat and not by any direct change in...
Seebeck effect
Characteristic of dissimilar metals in thermoelectric solar cells whereby separate junctions exhibiting distinct...
kinetic cooling
An atmospheric nonlinear process unique to CO2 laser wavelengths, whereby CO2 absorbs 10.6-µm radiation and the CO2...
Fourier transform
Any of the various methods of decomposing a signal into a set of coefficients of orthogonal waveforms (trigonometric...
computer-calculated diffraction pattern
The use of computer analysis in the calculation of diffraction patterns for information on the design of optical systems. In...
electron cyclotron maser
A maser that relies on the fact that electrons in orbital motion in high-magnetic fields will emit energy at the cyclotron...
near-field holography
A lithography method that allows the transfer of fine-pitch gratings from a phase mask into photoresist. The exposure takes...
thermomagnetic imaging
The production of an image on a magnetic film that is exposed to infrared radiation and heated to a point above Curie...
single-molecule FRET
Single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) is a specialized technique in biophysics and molecular...
calorimetry
Calorimetry is a branch of science that involves the measurement of heat flow in physical or chemical processes. It...
Brillouin scattering
Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with...
heat equation
A calorimetric calculation from which the temperature vs. time dependence of any point on a sample can be determined,...
Monte Carlo simulation
Simulation of radiative transfer in which each photon is generated by a source and its path through the medium is...
Camera Link HS
Camera Link HS (high speed) is a standard developed for high-speed digital data transmission in machine vision and...
fluorescence decay system
A device, also called a fluorescence lifetime instrument, that measures decay curves of fluorescing samples. It generally...
frame grabber
Image processing peripheral that converts video images from cameras into digital format and transfers these digital images...
two-dimensional Fourier transform
The Fourier series representation of a two-dimensional periodic field, assuming that the original image is periodic both...
light source power
The electrical power used to stimulate any light source. Power supplies may be step-up or step-down transformers; rectifiers...
optical transform image modulation
A technique for detecting and measuring atmospheric pollution, in which an oscillating mirror directs half the incoming...
annihilation radiation
Gamma ray radiation released when matter and antimatter, such as electron and positron, unite and eliminate each other,...
molecular motor
A molecular motor refers to a nano-sized device composed of organic molecules or other small-scale components that can...
contrast transfer function
relay lens
A lens or lens system used to transfer a real image from one point within an optical system to another, with or without...
detector-Dewar assembly
A detector-Dewar assembly typically refers to a combination of a detector and a Dewar flask used in scientific instruments,...
quasi-Fourier transform
The transform defining that, if a reference beam is a divergent spherical wavefront, then the reconstructed image will be...
attosecond-pump attosecond-probe spectroscopy
Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe spectroscopy (APAP) is an advanced technique in ultrafast spectroscopy that allows...
four-level laser
A solid-state laser consisting of active atoms or ions of a transition metal, rare-earth metal or actinide, imbedded in a...
lenticular image dissection
A method of image dissection whereby a lens transfers images onto a lenticular plate that in turn illustrates the images as...
fiber optic faceplate
A plate made up of thousands of glass fibers arranged parallel to one another, i.e., in a coherent bundle, and fused...
charge-transfer gate
digital camera
A digital camera is a device that captures and records still images or video in digital format. Unlike traditional film...
ring topology
A system of local area networking in which each node or station is connected to two others, ultimately forming a loop. Data...
frequency domain
The frequency domain is a concept used in signal processing and analysis to represent signals and data in terms of their...
Auger effect
The radiation-free transition that takes place within an ion, in which inner-shell vacancies in neutral atoms are filled by...
photomask
A photomask, also known simply as a mask or reticle, is a key component in the photolithography process used in...
charge-transfer efficiency
In a charge-coupled device, the percentage of each charge packet that is carried over to the next stage of the transport...
technicolor
The color process that is used to form positive color cine films by dye transfer or imbibition, based on the use of separate...
solar heat storage
The process of transferring collected energy from solar radiation into a heat-absorbing medium (e.g., an insulated tank of...
photoelectric absorption
The transformation of incident radiant energy into a photoelectric emission current.
Felgett advantage
The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) obtained with a Fourier transform spectrometer when detector noise prevails, which exceeds...
helium-neon laser
A helium-neon (HeNe) laser is a type of gas laser that emits visible red light at a wavelength of 632.8 nm. It operates...
embedded laser
The term "embedded laser" typically refers to a laser device that is integrated or embedded into a larger system or...
high-speed motion camera
A high-speed motion camera, also known as a high-speed camera or slow-motion camera, is a specialized imaging device...
packet
The finite amount of electrical charge generated in response to incident radiation and transferred from one storage element...
excimer laser
An excimer laser is a type of ultraviolet laser that emits short pulses of light in the ultraviolet spectrum. The term...
joint transform correlator
A device consisting of two optical systems in which two signals are simultaneously transformed to produce their spectra, and...
time delay integration
A method of scanning in which a frame transfer device produces a continuous video image of a moving object by means of a...
phase transfer function
The determination of the relative phase shift of an image as a function of frequency. A phase change of 180° with...
discrete cosine transform
A mathematical transformation used in image and video compression that changes two-dimensional representation of data into...
near-infrared spectrometer
A near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer is an analytical instrument used to measure the absorption, transmission, or reflection...
photoresist
Photoresist is a light-sensitive material used in photolithography processes, particularly in the fabrication of...
deep learning
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that involves the use of artificial neural networks to model and solve complex...
electron multiplication charge-coupled device camera
An EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge-coupled device) camera is a type of scientific camera specifically designed for...
CID camera
CID, or charge injection device, camera refers to a type of imaging device that utilizes a specific kind of solid-state...
moiré deflectometry
An optical interference technique widely utilized as a method of nondestructive testing when determining the ray deflection...
Touschek effect
Effect whereby two electrons lose synchronism with the accelerating field and are lost during synchronous radiation. The...
phototoxicity
Phototoxicity refers to the harmful effects caused by exposure to light, particularly intense or ultraviolet (UV) light, on...
CoaXPress
CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision...
resonator
A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance, which is a phenomenon that occurs when an external force or...
FTIR spectrometer
FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of...
laser-mediated gene transfer
Laser-mediated gene transfer refers to a technique in molecular biology and genetic engineering that utilizes lasers to...
thermal interface materials
Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are substances or compounds used to enhance the thermal conductivity between two surfaces...
terahertz
Terahertz (THz) refers to a unit of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, denoting waves with frequencies between 0.1...
Fourier transform hologram
A hologram formed by the recording of a plane object situated in the focal plane of a lens so that each object gives rise to...
Planck's law
A fundamental law of quantum theory which states that the discrete quanta of energy transfers associated with...
topology
Topology is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the properties of space that are preserved under continuous...
phototelegraphy
A document-transmitting process that uses a cylinder that rotates the document to be scanned and detected by a photoelectric...
network interface card
A network interface card (NIC), also known as a network adapter or LAN adapter, is a hardware component that allows...
CCD image sensor
A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images...
output spectrum display
The direct computation of the Fourier transform of the space variant system output of an optical processor with a single...
antigen
An antigen is any substance that is capable of triggering an immune response in an organism. Antigens are typically proteins...
gamma correction
Modification of a system to provide for a linear transfer characteristic from an input to an output device. A circuit for...
image transformation
The processing of an image or portion of an image by transform coding and analysis. Fourier, Hadamand, Kronecker and...
differential interferometer
A device that produces an interferogram that can be directly related to the temperature gradient and thereby provides a...
vector correlation
A machine vision technique of image correlation whereby the correlation kernel (template of the desired image) is...
terminated crossbar
An optical matrix that does not require perfection in both states of the crosspoint, so that all the optical switches can be...
Fourier transform spectrometer
An instrument using a Michelson interferometer, a beamsplitter, two plane mirrors and a detector to give Fourier analysis of...
induction linear accelerator
A device used to accelerate the electrons in a free-electron laser by supplying electrical energy to the electron beam...
laser annealing
Laser annealing is a process that involves using a laser beam to heat and modify the microstructure of a material, typically...
digital signal processing
Digital signal processing (DSP) refers to the manipulation and analysis of signals, which are representations of physical...
feedback
The transfer of a part of a device's or circuit's output back to its input.
charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a type of electronic image sensor used in various imaging devices, including digital...
sensitized fluorescence
The optical energy transfer between ions of differing atoms.
momentum transfer
In physics, momentum transfer is the amount of momentum transferred from one particle to another during particle collision...
logarithmic transformation
One class of nonlinear space-invariant transformation processes used for processing convolved and multiplied signals.
point processing
In digital image processing, a subcategory of frame processing that transforms pixel brightness and contrast through use of...
optical Fourier transform
The optical Fourier transform is a mathematical operation applied to optical signals that involves transforming a spatial...
quantum optics
The area of optics in which quantum theory is used to describe light in discrete units or "quanta" of energy known as...
definition test object
A chart, either printed on paper or prepared photographically on glass plates or film, that consists of 3-bar resolution...
planar magnetron
A device used in the sputtering of thin films, in which a magnet system on the back of the cathode deflects the electrons,...
Nusselt number
Expression of the nondimensional coefficient of the heat transfer in a convection process.
borescope
A device for the internal inspection of hard-to-get-at mechanical parts, such as rifle barrels, sewer pipes, oil wells, or...
substrate
A substrate refers to a material or surface upon which another material or process is applied or deposited. In various...
ion-beam sputtering
Ion-beam sputtering (IBS) is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique used for depositing thin films onto substrates. It...
phonon
A phonon is a quantum of vibrational energy associated with the periodic motion of atoms or molecules in a crystalline...
filament transformer
A transformer that is designed to regulate the amount of current that passes through an electron tube's filament.
dye transfer method
The subtractive imbibing process of transferring color prints on paper whereby the dyes from three separately prepared...
three-level laser
A laser having a material, such as ruby, that has an energy state structure of three levels: the ground state (1) wherein...
charge-transfer device
See charge-coupled device; charge-injection device.
hyperspectral imaging
Hyperspectral imaging is an advanced imaging technique that captures and processes information from across the...
whole slide imaging
Whole slide imaging (WSI), also known as virtual slide microscopy or digital pathology, is a technology that involves the...
transport shift register
The element in a charge-coupled device that receives the charge packets transferred from the line of sensor sites and then...
photolithography
Photolithography is a key process in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, and...
photochemical
The term photochemical pertains to chemical processes or reactions that are initiated or influenced by the absorption of...
thermoelectric converter
An instrument that transforms heat energy into electrical energy.
GigE
GigE, short for gigabit Ethernet, refers to a standard for high-speed Ethernet communication, capable of transmitting data...
digital-to-analog converter
In image processing, a device that transforms the digital data into an analog video image that can be viewed on a monitor or...
polarizer
An optical device capable of transforming unpolarized or natural light into polarized light, usually by selective...
reagent
A reagent is a substance or compound that is used in a chemical reaction to bring about a specific transformation or to...
flying spot scanner
A device used to scan, with a small, intensely bright spot, portions of a picture surface and to transform the original...
fiber lapping
A method of optical fiber coupling in which the fibers are ground down to expose their cores and placed together to allow...
Peltier cooler
A Peltier cooler, also known as a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) or thermoelectric module, is a solid-state device that uses...

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