Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that measures changes in hemoglobin...

The observable illustration of an image, scene or data on a screen such as a console or cathode-ray tube, seen as a graph,...

A laser diode module is a compact device that incorporates a laser diode, optics, and often other components into a single...

A noncontact, nondestructive method of measuring defects in thin composite materials, using a xenon flashtube to generate...

A vision defect commonly referred to as nearsightedness. The defective condition results when the image of a distant object...

A filter that polarizes light passing through it. It is possible to fabricate sheets of plastic or gelatin that contain...

The Casimir force is a quantum phenomenon that results in an attractive force between two closely spaced uncharged...

Brightfield refers to a type of microscopy and imaging technique in which the specimen is illuminated with a white light...

A reproduction made of an original grating -- usually by casting thermosetting plastics onto the original -- to avoid the...

RGB stands for red, green, blue, which are the primary colors of light used in additive color mixing. The RGB color model is...

Phototherapy is a medical treatment that involves the use of light to treat various conditions, particularly those related...

The area of optics that deals with the interaction of light with a given material. The optical properties of material are...

A panel of photoconductive and electroluminescent layers used as either a positive or negative image intensifier, depending...

The use of a micromanipulator in combination with a microscope for the purposes of examining, dissecting, or the...

A lamp that uses the transmission of an electric current through a gas or vapor to produce illumination. Neon, mercury and...

In optics and photonics, "phase" refers to a property of electromagnetic waves, such as light, that describes the position...

Optical coatings are thin layers of materials applied to optical components, such as lenses, mirrors, filters, and prisms,...

An apochromat, often referred to as an apochromatic lens or apochromatic objective, is a type of optical system designed to...

A spectrophotometer in which the beam emitted by the radiation source is split into beams that travel through the sample and...

The study and analysis of images produced by a fluoroscope.

Swept-source optical coherence tomography is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics, particularly in...

At a given modulation frequency, wavelength, and for a given effective noise bandwidth, the radiant power that produces a...

Usually consists of a set of filters that attenuate specific wavelengths but transmit as much visible radiation as possible.

Concave and convex spherical mirrors are types of curved mirrors that have surfaces shaped like segments of spheres. These...

The process of creating a large, panoramic image by aligning and joining a set of smaller images. Image processing is used...

An instrument devised by Nichols and Hull for use in the measurement of radiation pressure. The device has two small...

A system for fabricating optical fiber, consisting of a furnace that heats the materials, a polymer coating stage, a...

The light-conducting portion of an optical fiber, defined by the region of high refractive index.

An instrument used to record the emittance or reflectance of an object by scanning with discrete spectral resolution over a...

A direct method of measuring refractive index that works best with flat-surfaced samples (i.e., those that are not dependent...

The minimum energy required to induce atomic and molecular separation or displacement due to incident intense laser...

An alphanumeric display formed by a layer of liquid crystal material sandwiched between two sheets of glass; a transparent...

The soft x-rays used in the industrial radiography of materials having too small a range of densities to produce an image...

A short term for latent image intensification, a process much like hypersensitizing in photography, but used after exposure...

A light-sensitive resistor in which resistance decreases with increase in light intensity when illuminated. The device...

A small bulb containing a conducting gas, an arc being formed between a metal ring and a tiny zirconium electrode near the...

A cylindrical lens is an optical component that has different curvatures along its two orthogonal axes, resulting in a shape...

An emission spectrum is a graphical representation or a characteristic pattern of the wavelengths or frequencies of light...

Laser drift typically refers to a phenomenon where the frequency or wavelength of a laser source gradually changes over...

Optical cements and adhesives are specialized materials used in the assembly and bonding of optical components in optical...

Totally coherent radiation is produced by a purely monochromatic point source. In the real world the energy will have a...

Interferometric modulator display (IMOD) is a type of display technology used in electronic devices, known for its energy...

A type of spectroscopy used extensively in the analysis of biological samples. Because most biologically synthesized...

A coating made up of many layers of material having alternating high and low refractive index. In this way, it is possible...

A semiconductor formed by applying a particular single-crystal layer to the specific insulator.

Holmium lasers are a type of medical laser that utilizes holmium-doped crystals as the gain medium. The term holmium laser...

Etaloning is an optical phenomenon that occurs in imaging systems, particularly in devices such as spectrometers,...

The process by which a vitreous or amorphous substance forms a crystal structure at a specified temperature.

The term photochemical pertains to chemical processes or reactions that are initiated or influenced by the absorption of...

An amplifying device with a wide tuning range in which an electron gun sends a beam of electrons into a slow-wave structure....

A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is a compact and integrated device that incorporates multiple photonic components and...

A compound lens so constructed that its overall length is equal to or less than its effective focal length.

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) is a spectroscopic technique that involves using a laser to excite molecules or atoms,...

A laser in which stimulated emission is triggered by the absorption by electrons of light from an auxiliary source such as a...

Calculation of the probability of an interaction between two types of particles, such as light absorption, excitation or...

A monatomic, chemically inert gas such as argon, neon, krypton and xenon.

A method of determining prism power at any point on a lens. Prism power equals the product of the dioptric power and the...

An optical material used in place of crown glass to produce lenses with extraordinary correction of chromatic aberrations....

Broadband dielectric mirrors, also known as broadband mirrors, are optical coatings designed to efficiently reflect or...

Gram-positive bacteria are a group of bacteria that have a thick cell wall composed primarily of a substance called...

An aspheric mirror is an optical mirror surface that deviates from the shape of a perfect sphere, having a non-spherical...

An angstrom, symbolized by the Ångström or Å, is a unit of length used to express atomic and molecular...

A hole filled with dirt such as a polishing abrasive and located in an optical surface. See dig; scratch.

Seidel aberrations refer to a set of monochromatic aberrations in optical systems, named after the German mathematician and...

A glass block that produces stationary fringes in the region crossed by incident light beams.

A hyperspectral imaging camera is a sophisticated imaging device capable of capturing and processing data across a wide...

The fusion frequency of flicker that is needed just to produce complete fusion and to assure the visual sensation of...

The fiber optic connector developed and manufactured by Amphenol Fiber Optic Products.

A GRIN (gradient index) lens is a type of optical lens that utilizes a gradient in refractive index across its volume rather...

Second-order nonlinear optical properties refer to a class of phenomena exhibited by certain materials in response to...

Laser peening is a surface enhancement technique used to improve the mechanical properties of materials, particularly...

The analysis of the properties of radiation, such as light, when acted upon by variations in the atmosphere. Blue and red...

A deliberately nonlinear amplitude modulation that strengthens weak signals and reduces strong signals for transmission.

Spectral flow cytometry is an advanced flow cytometry technique that expands the capabilities of traditional flow cytometry...

A nonradiative transition refers to a process in which an electron or an atom undergoes a change in its energy state without...

A technique used in holography that involves the mixing of lasers of different wavelengths to produce a beam of shorter...

A frame taken with a CCD camera of a surface that is evenly illuminated by diffuse light. This frame shows irregularities in...

The effect produced on a wave frequency because of the relative motion of a source or an observer. The radiation emitted...

A device used for the comparison of spectra used, in turn, for the comparison of elements, such as the absorption lines in...

A hologram produced by a pair of radiation beams, each carrying information.

The measured change in absorption at a single wavelength while altering experimental parameters such as the incident...

A type of semiconductor diode used in voltage-limiting circuits; when voltage reaches a certain value, the device becomes a...

A photocathode having a P-type semiconductor with a work function less than its bandgap. The photocathode can release a...

A type of computer in which the electronic circuits, which process data serially, are replaced by photonic circuits capable...

The term applied to the geometrical structure of radiometry or of the propagation of any quantity that is conversed and that...

A plasma produced by the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a material surface. Production of ionized particle with...

In image processing, a morphology operator in which a structuring element or probe of a particular shape is moved over the...

In dry etching, a method of characterizing the composition of solid materials such as metal. Atoms in the OES technique are...

A breakout cable, also known as a fan-out cable or breakout assembly, is a type of cable that combines multiple individual...

A type of liquid-crystal display in which each display element contains an active component, such as a thin-film transistor,...

The photographic recording of gas bubbles produced when particles traverse liquid hydrogen in a bubble chamber.

An InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) camera is a type of imaging device that utilizes InGaAs sensors to capture images in the...

A process by which the ionizing capabilities of a laser beam are used to break initiate conduction between pairs of...

Freeform mirrors refer to reflective optical components that deviate from traditional symmetric or rotationally symmetric...

A nanotube, also known as a nanotubule or simply a tube-like structure, is a nanoscale cylindrical structure composed of...

A photon jet is a narrow, highly collimated beam of light that is formed when light interacts with small dielectric...

Custom lapping and polishing services involve specialized processes used to improve the surface finish and dimensional...

The conductivity increase exhibited by some nonmetallic materials, resulting from the free carriers generated when photon...

In image processing, the result of a sampling frequency that is too slow to preserve the spatial frequencies of the image....

An automatic camera that can record reduced images of documents at a rate of up to 30,000 documents per hour by having the...

An approach to character recognition based on the structure of the character to be identified (number of straight lines,...

A flexible display refers to a type of electronic visual display that is designed to be bendable, foldable, or rollable,...

A coherent fiber bundle (CFB), also known as a coherent fiber optic bundle, is an assembly of multiple optical fibers...

Anisotropy refers to the property of exhibiting different values or characteristics when measured in different directions....

Medical lasers are devices that produce intense beams of light with specific characteristics and properties, which are used...

Crystal growth method that resembles static freeze, but that induces growth by removing the ampoule from the furnace so that...

A general term referring to the situation in which an image is not a true-to-scale reproduction of an object. The term also...

A mid-infrared camera is a type of imaging device designed to capture images in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectral range,...

A lithography method that allows the transfer of fine-pitch gratings from a phase mask into photoresist. The exposure takes...

Light diffusion refers to the process by which light is scattered or spread out in various directions as it interacts with a...

Factor that relates the pulse spread occurring in a graded-index fiber to that of an equivalent step-index fiber having an...

Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy technique that enhances the contrast of transparent and colorless...

Area scan, in the context of imaging and cameras, refers to a method of capturing an entire two-dimensional image in a...

A bulk crystalline optic which permits the propagation of light through a volume of index altered material. The variation in...

A display device having a thermoplastic film as the control layer medium. The film, moving from a playoff reel, is scanned...

A lateral shearing interferometer is an optical device used in interferometry to measure phase differences between two beams...

The method by which interferograms are produced.

A device used to create a light output that exceeds light input, the energy being provided by an electric field. It consists...

A lens made up of a dielectric material that is capable of influencing radio waves much in the same way an optical lens...

The diagnostic procedure that uses ultrasonic energy to probe the body and, with the help of laser beams, a reflecting...

Mode-locking is a technique used in lasers to produce ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of picoseconds,...

A permanent, transparent, and highly transmissive adhesive capable of withstanding extreme temperatures that is applied to...

A zone plate produced by a computer and having a binary structure that can be etched into a chromium or quartz layer. It...

The phenomenon that can render an optical resonator the equivalent of a semiconductor flip-flop. A bistable device will...

Diamond turning refers to a precision machining process used to produce complex optical components, particularly lenses and...

A photodiode that has been designed so that the bar of semiconductor material has a PN junction perpendicular to its length...

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that forms at temperatures close to absolute zero. It is named after...

A whole-flow-field technique providing instantaneous velocity vector measurements in a cross-section of a flow that is...

Photoplethysmography (PPG) is a non-invasive optical technique used to detect changes in blood volume in tissues. It...

Dispersion that occurs when the medium's index of refraction decreases as the frequency of the propagating light increases....

A finite version of Shannon's sampling theorem that states that a class of functions can be reconstructed exactly by a...

An imaging device originally created to image whole mouse brain volumes at microscopic resolution. The main component of the...

The introduction of a filter into an imaging system to implement a phase contrast for an intensity mapping of a pure phase...

A lens, one surface being a cartesian oval, that produces an aplanatic condition.

An instrument for measuring the vertical angle of an object. It usually contains an accurately made protractor, a sensitive...

The mean square difference in refractive index for two separate points in space.

A phosphor, such as sulfide or selenide, that can be excited to luminescence by incident infrared radiation simultaneous to...

An electron tube that employs electromagnetic radiation to produce a visual replica of an image produced on its cathode....

One surface of a nonconducting plate that is coated with many minute particles of photoemissive material that are insulated...

The determination of what, how much and in what proportions chemicals must be combined to produce the desired reactions and...

A product of the area of a light beam (normal to its direction of propagation) and the solid angle that the beam includes;...

An instrument used to record infrared images of large areas. The recorded data are used to produce maps in false color...

A laser that has a surface-emitting semiconductor gain element coupled to an external mirror designed to complete the laser...

A display device, such as a cathode-ray tube, that is located at some distance from the source generating the displayed...

A hydrogel is a three-dimensional network of polymer chains that are hydrophilic, meaning they have a strong affinity for...

Simulation of radiative transfer in which each photon is generated by a source and its path through the medium is...

The portion of a reproduced image having the greatest luminance.

Optical materials refer to substances or compounds specifically chosen for their optical properties and used in the...

An electrophoretic display, often referred to as an electronic paper display or e-paper display, is a type of electronic...

Two flat parallel electrodes that are vertically mounted alongside each other in a cathode-ray tube and produce horizontal...

Small tungsten lamp used in surgical instruments such as cystoscopes, and for other purposes where space is limited.

The splitting of an element's spectral line as the result of the interactions between the electron spin and the spins of...

A grating used as a reflectance filter, particularly in the far-infrared. Small plane gratings, blazed for the wavelength of...

Impurity in a semiconductor or any other electroluminescent device capable of inducing hole conduction and accepting a...

An interference microscope that uses a light beam originating from a low-coherence light source. The sample is placed in one...

1. A device used to trace out an object and build up an image. One of the most common of these types is video scanning. The...

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to obtain high-resolution,...

A type of piezoelectric translator that uses two thin strips of piezoelectric material, one expanding while the other...

The total optical power loss caused by the insertion of an optical component such as a connector, splice or coupler into a...

The use of lasers in tailoring of such components as thin-film resistors. The process improves speed and accuracy.

A cathode-ray tube that serves as a picture tube in a television receiver. The signal representing the picture intensity is...

In an interlaced scanning electro-optical system such as television, the system resolution will be less than the number of...

Optical manufacturing tools and machinery encompass a wide range of equipment, instruments, and systems used in the...

A waveguide that has a core with a lower refractive index than the refractive index of the cladding. This structure can...

The properties exhibited by a semiconductor as the result of its modification by imperfections and impurities in the crystal.

Any testing method for materials and components that does not damage or destroy the test sample. Some of the methods used...

The ability of a conductor to store an electrical charge; its value is given in farads as the ratio of the stored charge on...

The monochromatic transparency effect produced by the immersion of a finely powdered substance (e.g., glass or quartz) into...

A photoconductive cell having cadmium sulfide as its photoconducting material for the production of a very high dark-light...

A semiconductor laser that operates in the infrared and that is pumped with strong pulses of radiation from a second laser....

A solid-state video detector consisting of a single row of light-sensitive semiconductor devices, used in linear-array...

A camera equipped with a lens and a long length of perforated film, the latter being moved intermittently between exposures...

Power modulation refers to the intentional variation of power levels in a signal, often in the context of electronic...

An instrument that is used to chart x-ray diffraction patterns, such as an x-ray spectrometer having photographic or other...

The separation of unpolarized light into two plane-polarized elements by a doubly refracting crystal. When a crystal, such...

Activity of a radionuclide having one spontaneous nuclear transition per second.

An image intensifier, also known as an image intensification tube or image intensification device, is a specialized...

A laser, which stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," is a device that produces coherent and...

A hologram formed by reconstruction of multicolor wavefronts. The system used to produce the hologram is designed to combine...

An optical testing instrument is a device or system used to evaluate and measure the performance, quality, and...

A manufacturing process used to construct substrates for large optical components. Used with IR materials, planform bonding...

A method of producing magnified images by x-rays. The specimen is placed close to a point source of x-rays; the...

The image of the aperture stop, usually the objective lens, that is produced by the eye lens. When the exit pupil of the...

The use of computer systems for monitoring and controlling industrial production.

An acousto-optic modulator (AOM) is a device that utilizes the interaction between sound waves and light waves to modulate...

Photobleaching is a phenomenon in which the fluorescence of a fluorophore (a fluorescent molecule or dye) is permanently...

A polarizing prism consisting of two calcite prisms cemented such that they deviate the two emerging beams (which are...

An atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS) is an analytical instrument used to determine the concentration of specific chemical...

A linear computation or algorithm performed on a selected series in the form of an input signal that produces a new series...

A positively charged particle emitted from the nucleus of an unstable isotope, characterized by two protons and two...

An endoscopic surgical instrument that includes a channel for the introduction of supplementary instruments.

A flat cylindrical device generally used to polish terminated ends in fiber optic connections.

The number of unique ways in which a part can move in an alignment system. In static alignment, there are six: one in the...

A magnon is a quasiparticle representing a quantized spin wave in a magnetic material. In other words, it is a collective...

A double meniscus system in which two achromatized meniscus lenses are arranged symmetrically on either side of the aperture...

The partial differential equations for the spatial and time dependence of electric and magnetic fields inside a...

The plot that expresses a reaction rate vs. the reciprocal of absolute temperature. Often used to describe the thermal...

A device used in solar systems to direct mirror-reflected sunlight to a heat absorber and heat-driven engine, which turns a...

Virtual histology refers to the use of digital technology and computational methods to simulate or recreate histological...

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) equipment refers to a class of specialized apparatus used in the process of chemical vapor...

Refers to the variety of techniques that use the interference pattern produced by laser light diffusely reflected by an...

A powerful and flexible machine-learning approach that can be used in machine vision to help solve difficult problems....

The coupled pairs of electrons that carry supercurrents through the body of a superconductor, relative to a coherent...

Aplanatic points refer to specific points in an optical system where certain aberrations, such as spherical aberration or...

Photovoltaic (PV) refers to a technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity using semiconductors. The term...

That branch of science involved in the study and utilization of the motion, emissions and behaviors of currents of...

A high-speed cine camera used to record, on a continuously moving film, very brief events such as a flash of light. The...

Array used in coded-aperture imaging experiments with two-beam CO2 lasers that provide an artifact-free process, faithful...

A machine vision technique of image correlation whereby the correlation kernel (template of the desired image) is...

The process of mapping the infrared emittance of an area through the use of an infrared detector and related scanning...

Scientific complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (sCMOS) refers to a type of image sensor technology specifically designed...

A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into...

The use of a reflective device, which can be fashioned from a variety of materials including gases, solids, dyes, aerosols,...

A dielectric ceramic material used in laser capillary tubes because of its high electrical resistivity and high thermal...

The science of interfacing surfaces in moving contact, which includes areas such as friction, lubrication and wear.

The butt (edge to edge) splice of two pieces of film produced by a heat splicer that melts the edges together; used in...

An excimer laser is a type of ultraviolet laser that emits short pulses of light in the ultraviolet spectrum. The term...

The length of the small space within which the atmosphere exhibits coherence, particularly in relation to an observer on...

A laser having a Q-switching method that allows separate parallel volumes of the lasing material to act independently of...

A calorimetric calculation from which the temperature vs. time dependence of any point on a sample can be determined,...

Low Earth orbit (LEO) refers to a region in space that is relatively close to Earth's surface, typically characterized by...

In optics, a motion controller refers to a device or system that precisely controls the movement of optical components, such...

The area of optics in which the wave nature of a particle is exploited to carry out very accurate interferometry and other...

A two-electrode, radiation-sensitive junction formed in a semiconductor material in which the reverse current varies with...

A telescopic light-sensing meter used to measure illumination levels of small regions at a distance of many feet; it is used...

Observed phenomenon in laser pulses in which a large number of excited electrons are created and in which multiphoton...

The ability of a machine to perform certain complex functions normally associated with human intelligence, such as judgment,...

A pathogen is a biological agent, such as a virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoan, or parasite, that causes disease in its...

Optoelectronics is a branch of electronics that focuses on the study and application of devices and systems that use light...

A device that provides simple and reliable laser power and energy measurement. Essentially a heat flux sensor producing an...

A microscope that uses an extremely fine x-ray focal point to produce an enlarged photographic image of a sample. Also known...

The coupling of laser or light beams via nonlinear optical techniques such as four-wave mixing to achieve spatial variation...

A transition boundary between two regions having different properties in a P-type semiconducting material.

A single number, defined by the computer program or the user that expresses the performance of an optical system. Also known...

The electrical resistance between two points of a conductor when a constant difference of potential of one volt, applied...

Multispectral imaging is a technique that involves capturing and analyzing images at multiple discrete spectral bands within...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as...

A computer-generated hologram (CGH) is a holographic image produced using computational methods and algorithms, rather than...

A reflection hologram using multiple color lasers that integrates various graphical techniques to allow the display of...

A crucible made of electrically resistive material through which a current is passed to heat the material inside, which then...

The constant that, multiplied by the frequency of the radiation-producing emission of photoelectrons, determines the amount...

The partially reflective mirror at the end of the laser cavity that is the source of the beam. It controls the coupling...

Ultraviolet reflectance refers to the ability of a material or surface to reflect UV light. Ultraviolet light is...

A holographic plate coated by photopolymeric mixtures that are composed of one or more monomers and a photoredox catalyst...

A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to...

Embedded vision refers to the integration of computer vision technologies into various embedded systems, devices, or...

A rotating mirror coupled with a distant mirror and used in a system by Foucault to compute the velocity of light. Light...

A light source that is capable of producing radiation with waves vibrating in phase. The laser is an example of a coherent...

In an optical system, the gradual reduction of image illuminance as the off-axis angle increases, resulting from limitations...

An instrument in which an object's image, produced by a lens of known focal length, is used to determine the object's...

The pattern formed by a character generation cathode-ray tube system, in which the characters are composed of a sequence of...

A spectrometric instrument that detects radiation simultaneously in multiple channels, sorts it spectrally from the deep...

The darkening of the laser facet of a semiconductor laser diode. It can be prevented by placing the component in a...

The induced birefringence in isotropic gases that results when the gases are placed in strong fields.

Any instrument or system carried by a balloon to the upper atmosphere to measure and record atmospheric information, such as...

A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen, or quartz iodine lamp, is an incandescent lamp that uses a...

A process, either naturally occurring or mechanically induced, whereby water is changed from its liquid state into a vapor.

Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is a technique used in the fabrication of optical fibers. It is a specialized form...

The reduction in luminance of a light beam due to absorption and scattering as it passes through the atmosphere.

A term describing an antireflection coating that may be applied to optics that cannot tolerate the high temperatures usually...

A standard for fiber optic data transmission systems being developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and...

A method of thin-film deposition in which electrons boiled off a heated cathode are used to melt the coating material. If a...

Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast microscopy, is an optical...

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring substances. These...

Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) is a therapeutic approach that utilizes the combination of light, a photosensitizer, and...

The mark formed when the movement of the lens over the face of the centering chuck abrades the surface.

Quantum confinement refers to the phenomenon in quantum mechanics where the motion of charge carriers, such as electrons or...

A spectral phenomenon in which the degree of the photoresponse of an illuminated semiconductor is determined by the...

An optical test table made up of two outer layers or "skins'' bonded to either side of a honeycomblike core, usually of...

A phase-modulated sensor is a type of sensor that uses modulation of the phase of a signal to measure changes in a physical...

The optical reconstruction of image information contained in a sound field. First the diffraction pattern, formed by an...

A type of additive color photography using a lenticular structure impressed on a film base and a camera lens with a filter...

An aspheric lens is a type of lens whose surface profiles deviate from the traditional spherical shape. Unlike spherical...

The production of visible light by infrared radiation whereby the light is produced by heat and not by any direct change in...

Diamond turning, also known as diamond machining or diamond cutting, is a precision machining process used to produce...

Also known as RAMP microscopy, random access multiphoton microscopy is a microscopic technique that uses multiple...

In semiconductor physics, the term bandgap refers to the energy range in a material where no electronic states are allowed....

A fiber optic sensor is a device that uses optical fibers to detect and measure physical, chemical, biological, or...

Laser sintering is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that involves using a laser to selectively fuse...

A crystal consisting of a substance that has the ability to become electrically polarized and has strong piezoelectric...

Also known as light beating. The mixing of two narrowband optical components to produce an AC component in the photocurrent...

The term reflective is an adjective that describes the ability of a surface or material to reflect light or other forms of...

Micro-optical coherence tomography (micro-OCT) is an imaging technique that is an adaptation of optical coherence tomography...

Wave of radiation identified by individual fluctuations of electric and magnetic fields.

A laser effect used especially for laser light shows. Lumia are created by placing a distorting medium such as rippled glass...

Long-wave infrared (LWIR) refers to a specific range of the infrared spectrum. Infrared radiation is divided into three main...

A substrate refers to a material or surface upon which another material or process is applied or deposited. In various...

A filter, partially opaque to near-ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation, that may be made by exposing and processing...

Holographic quantity expressed as the ratio of the reconstructed first-order image to that of the incident reconstructing...

A monochromator is an optical instrument used to isolate and select a narrow range of wavelengths from a broader spectrum of...

A prism produced by severing a Nicol prism and reconstructing the polarization angles of the two halves so that they are...

The fine scratches formed when, in hand centering, the forked stick used to move the lens on the chuck marks the rotating...

A material that produces stimulated emission during the process of amplification with a laser system.

Linear optics refers to the study and manipulation of light in a linear and deterministic manner, where the response of...

A waveguide made up of a dielectric material, such as plastic or mica, in a cylindrical form, through which the waves travel.

An optical assembly refers to a collection of optical components that are carefully arranged and aligned to perform a...

A mechanical or electrical-electromagnetic device for periodically interrupting or blocking abeam of light for a brief known...

In present usage, especially for spectroscopic identification, an arc between electrodes that serves as a radiation source....

Spherical or chromatic aberration in a lens having a wide aperture. It is present because the refracting power varies for...

Collaborative Robot (Cobot): Unlike traditional autonomous robots, which usually work by themselves, a collaborative robot...

A photoconductive cell consisting of a layer of selenium on a substrate whose electrical resistance varies with the...

A material, such as gold black and carbon black, that is used as a solar absorber because of its high absorptance and low...

An assembly of prototype instruments, equipment and/or software designed to perform all the functions of a concept or idea...

Any photographic medium that, when chemically developed, produces an exact photographic reproduction of the original.

An inspection device in which the profile of a mechanical part is projected onto a ground-glass screen at a precisely known...

An electric discharge lamp in which the conducting vapor is that of metallic sodium instead of the usual mercury. It emits a...

A type of surface-emitting laser diode that uses dielectric mirrors to produce surface emission. The laser cavity is...

A custom optic refers to an optical component that is designed, manufactured, and tailored to meet specific requirements or...

Single-mode fiber that preserves the plane of polarization of the light launched into it as the beam propagates through its...

Measure of the interference fringe pattern produced by the forward scattering of light by an optical fiber; the fringe...

Theoretical calculation of the cross section for a nuclear reaction given in the vicinity of a single resonance level in the...

When a lens system with a circular aperture is free of aberrations, the image of a point object will appear as a disc of...

Optical phase distortion refers to a phenomenon where the phase of an optical wavefront is altered as it propagates through...

Two-photon polymerization (TPP) is a technique used in additive manufacturing, specifically in the field of 3D printing. It...

Laser-powered telephone device for analog communications that employs a vibrating plastic membrane as a transmitter to...

Derivative of the half-tone screen process involving the fabrication of a binary pulse-width modulated copy of the...

A photometer having a pair of Nicol prisms introduced into the beam from the brighter of two sources to be compared. Turning...

Rayleigh scattering is a phenomenon that occurs when light waves interact with particles or molecules that are much smaller...

Voltage that produces current flow in the direction of greater resistance to the steady-state direct current; i.e., from the...

Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a specialized optical fiber that features two concentric cladding layers surrounding a core. The...

Reciprocal magnetic interaction between nuclei in a molecular system facilitated by the binding electrons of the molecule.

Indium phosphide (InP) is a compound semiconductor material composed of indium (In) and phosphorus (P). It belongs to the...

A machine vision system is an integrated combination of hardware and software components designed to capture, process, and...

Refers to the characteristic hue of the ocean according to the presence and concentration of specific minerals or...

A vacuum gauge designed to measure very high degrees of vacuum by thermal conduction.

Ratio of the radiant flux at a particular wavelength lm to that at any other wavelength l, such that both radiations produce...

Process developed for the production of high-resolution patterns in electro- and magneto-optics. These high-generation...

A class of optical phenomena that can be viewed only with nearly monochromatic, directional beams of light, such as those...

In a semiconductor, the state created by the addition of a dopant that provides excess electrons.

Also duty factor, duty ratio. The product of the pulse duration and the pulse repetition frequency of a wave composed of...

The ability of an electrical current to destroy superconductivity by means of the magnetic field generated by the current....

The purest gas source of antimony, which is used in the manufacture of compound semiconductors for IR sensors and...

Device that operates by interaction of incident radiation with semiconductor based material in order to produce an...

The range of materials that, unlike glass, may be used in the infrared. Water-soluble salts, such as cesium iodide, and...

An optical experiment carried out conclusively in 1887 that demonstrated that the ether, a hypothetical medium postulated by...

Any structure having the ability to guide the flow of radiant energy along a path parallel to its axis and to contain the...

A 45-90-45° reflecting prism whose surfaces form the 90° angle reflecting the light beam through a total angle of 180°. The...

An optical combiner, in the context of optics and display technologies, refers to a device or component that combines...

The unit of the dose of any radiation that produces the same biological effect as one roentgen of x-ray.

A source of energy that produces needed excitation for population inversion in laser operation. The excitation source that...

Liquid marble refers to a unique form of microscale liquid encapsulation, where small droplets of liquid are coated with a...

A blue diode laser is a type of semiconductor laser that emits light in the blue wavelength range of the electromagnetic...

The fringes used in the Jamin interferometer and produced by light that has been internally and externally reflected by two...

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of...

Laser lithotripsy is a medical procedure that uses laser energy to break down or fragment stones in various parts of the...

A semiconductor device with a semiconductor junction in which infrared radiant flux is nonthermally produced when a current...

Any arrangement of a bundle of optical fibers that alters the shape of the image. For example, by systematic regulation of...

A photographic enlarger with a fixed negative plane and a fixed paper plane, often using a roll of paper that is advanced...

A solid with a structure that exhibits a basically symmetrical and geometrical arrangement. A crystal may already possess...

A colorimeter is a device used to measure and quantify the color characteristics of an object or a light source. It provides...

A pulse having extremely short duration, about 10-13 to 10-10 s, that is produced by mode locking of wide-bandwidth lasers,...

A reflector having a surface that has been superpolished to reduce residual sleeks and scratches and microroughness so that...

A superconducting bolometer, operating at very low temperatures, that is used to detect infrared radiation.

An advanced technique that allows the detection of one molecule within a crystal or a cell through optical excitation....

The power that gives rise to the production of energy at the rate of 1 joule per second.

An early type of nonvacuum photocell consisting of a layer of copper oxide on a metallic substrate, with a thin transparent...

A thermistor that uses a semiconductor that is sensitive to infrared radiation to measure the radiation's intensity.

A lamp in which the ionization of the inert gas contained in it produces a glow in the space close to the negative electrode.

Epitaxial equipment refers to a set of specialized tools and systems used in the process of epitaxy, which is the growth of...

An optical diffuser is an optical component or material designed to scatter or diffuse light that passes through it. It is...

A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or...

A material, often a liquid or cement, whose refractive index is nearly equal to the fiber's core index, used to reduce...

The use of atoms, molecules and molecular-scale structures to enhance existing technology and develop new materials and...

Generally, a rotatable table with scales marked in degrees. The fiducial marking also may be a vernier scale. The same...

Optical glass refers to a type of glass specifically engineered and manufactured for use in optical components and systems,...

MTF analysis/measurement equipment refers to instruments and tools used to measure and analyze the modulation transfer...

Stimulating light used for the production of energy through photosynthesis, solar cell or other light senstitive device.

An instrument designed for laser technology that is used to extract single pulses from the laser and transmit a portion of...

A physical stop that is conjugate to the entrance pupil and is used primarily to reduce diffraction effects at longer...

An optical element having two principal axes, slow and fast, that resolve an incident polarized beam into two mutually...

A material often used in the construction of optical instruments because of its low coefficient of thermal expansion (0.9 x...

An LED, or light emitting diode, is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. LEDs...

An otoscope is a medical device used by healthcare professionals, particularly ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialists,...

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are ordinary cells that are genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell-like...

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) technology that utilizes organic compounds to...

Microfluidics is a multidisciplinary field that involves the manipulation and control of very small fluid volumes, typically...

Housing that resembles a small metal can for a semiconductor component, photodetector or similar device.

A printing process of electrostatic electrophotography that uses a photoconductive insulating medium, in conjunction with...

A photomultiplier tube (PMT) is a highly sensitive vacuum tube that detects and amplifies low levels of light. It is widely...

Postulated by Einstein in his theory of relativity. They are waves traveling at the speed of light and exerting force on...

A visual defect that produces a disparity in the sizes of the images formed by the two eyes.

A computer architecture used in parallel processing whereby the processing elements are directed by a single, central...

Nanoparticle photonic resonator absorption microscopy is a microscopy technique that combines the principles of photonic...

A fluorophore is a molecule or a portion of a molecule that has the ability to emit light upon excitation by an external...

The series of processes used to identify and evaluate crystal structure by using crystalline solids to diffract x-rays. In...

In photonics, a lattice refers to a periodic arrangement of optical elements or structures, often on a microscopic or...

Formulaic compensation to correct laser ranging data for the effects of horizontal refractivity gradients; it requires the...

An instrument that measures several optical parameters, such as optical power and wavelength, with a single measurement...

With a repetitive object such as a series of equispaced lines, the reciprocal of the line spacing in object or image,...

A method that produces low-loss optical fibers. A glass tube rotates while reactants pass through the tube and heat is...

Substances that exhibit the characteristics of both acids and bases and are capable of both P- and N-type conductivity.

A term used to denote a difference in magnification along mutually perpendicular meridians. Anamorphic systems are basically...

Any problem that requires retrieval of the distribution of some internal properties, such as temperature concentration,...

An imaging system designed to highlight small deviations in a planar reflective object such as a mirror. The system can be...

A camera lens, used in macrophotography, that is designed and corrected to produce optimum definition of a nearby object...

1. The variation in intensity of a light beam as it travels through the atmosphere. 2. In radiation physics, a light flash...

A furnace used to heat glass materials. It may be a small laboratory-type furnace for small-scale experiments or large...

A process used in the design, repair and customization of integrated circuits. A low-power laser etches a silicon wafer...

A laser-induced scar on experimental bare glass surfaces usually attributable to threshold damage and indicative of isolated...

The study concerned with the stimulation of chemical activity by laser light as a result of the absorption of photons by a...

Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly...

The property exhibited by a substance having electrical conductivity that decreases as the intensity of the incident visible...

Van der Waals forces refer to the attractive or repulsive forces between molecules (or parts of molecules) that arise from...

The induction of an electric field in a semiconductor by an incident laser beam. The technique has rapid response time at...

The luminescence displayed when particular minerals are irradiated with β-rays and g-rays, after being exposed to...

Whole slide imaging (WSI), also known as virtual slide microscopy or digital pathology, is a technology that involves the...

1. The reduction in the developable density of a photographic emulsion that has been extremely overexposed. 2. In a laser...

A swept-source laser, also known as a wavelength-swept laser, is a type of laser that rapidly and continuously changes its...

Holographic recording whereby the object is illuminated by two pulses, separated by a time interval, from a Q-switched laser...

The production of rough glass lens blanks that are pressed while red-hot to the approximate size and shape of the finished...

The deposition of a metallic coating, usually nickel, on a component by chemical means rather than by electroplating; the...

A device consisting of two optical systems in which two signals are simultaneously transformed to produce their spectra, and...

The spectrum produced by the interference of light provided that the source used to create the interference has a broad...

Photoconductive antenna (PCA) is a semiconductor element that generates or detects high-frequency electromagnetic signals....

Also referred to as fundus photography, ophthalmoscopy is the dioptrical study of the various interior components of the eye...

A device that uses electromagnetic fields to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses. As a beam of...

A process for the production of optical fibers. A glass bait is rotated in a traversing flame of a reaction burner....

An ultrafast laser is a type of laser that emits extremely short pulses of light with durations typically on the order of...

A telescopic eyepiece that produces a field of view between 40° and 50°. The eyepiece consists of a single element...

A thin-film photoconductive cell that is sensitive to the infrared region. The photosensitive material of the cell is...

An infrared transmitting material used in the production of fluoride glasses for optical fibers.

Liquid crystals are a state of matter that exhibits properties intermediate between those of conventional liquids and solid...

A galvanometric scanner, also known as a galvanometer scanner or galvo scanner, is a type of optical scanning device used to...

Inertial fusion energy (IFE) refers to a proposed method of generating electricity by harnessing the energy released from...

A screen composed of a sheet of diffusing plastic material that reveals excellent image detail for close viewing. It is...

A junction between semiconductors that differ in their doping level conductivities, and also in their atomic or alloy...

Also known as roof prism. A type of prism designed by G.B. Amici. It consists of a roof edge produced upon the long...

An imaging technique used in radiology that is based on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to produce...

Metabolic imaging refers to the visualization and quantification of metabolic processes within living organisms, tissues, or...

A statistical analysis of facts obtained when the intensity of x-ray diffraction is calculated at different angles. In this...

The laser output refers to the generated and emitted light produced by a laser system. This output is characterized by...

A guided missile that uses an infrared sensor to detect and home in on an enemy target. The missile is guided by the high...

The radiation emitted in semiconductors when electrons in the conduction band recombine with holes in the valence band. If...

Interval between cutting off a photoconductor's signal and the fall of current output to 90 percent.

Freeform optics refers to the design and fabrication of optical surfaces that do not follow traditional symmetric shapes,...

A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images...

The current that flows through a photosensitive device, such as a photodiode, as the result of exposure to radiant power.

The production of a positron-electron pair by a photon having energy greater than one mega-electron-volt, whereby some of...

A technique used to suppress extreme noise amplification during digital image reconstruction that relies on smoothing and...

An arc flash is a sudden release of electrical energy due to an electric arc — a continuous, high-current discharge of...

Relative to a light source, the frequency at which the source appears to fluctuate in light intensity half the time and...

A compound lens combination whose astigmatic difference is zero for one or more off-axis zones in the image plane. In such a...

A device that detects radiation by utilizing the influence of light in forming an electrical signal. It may be a phototube;...

An instrument that uses a blackened silver-disc reflector with a shutter to create temperature fluctuations that are...

A microdisplay is a miniature electronic display technology that is designed to project visual information onto a small...

A series of flanges or other conducting surfaces, usually metal, attached to an electronic device to transmit and dissipate...

Ellipsometry is an optical technique used to characterize the properties of thin films and surfaces. It is based on the...

A phenomenon that causes the details in an image to appear at a spatial frequency higher than that at which the contrast...

A molecular motor refers to a nano-sized device composed of organic molecules or other small-scale components that can...

Phototoxicity refers to the harmful effects caused by exposure to light, particularly intense or ultraviolet (UV) light, on...

The decrease of a component's efficiency, or a reduction in a material's light sensitivity, as the result of accumulated...

Also known as cathode rays. Formerly, this term described a stream of electrons emitted from the cathode of a gas-discharge...

Developing a photographic image by means of an applied electric field. The methods used include electrolysis and...

A device used to compare the luminous intensities of two sources by comparing the illuminance they produce.

The photographic recording of an image formed by the alteration in electrical properties of the sensitive materials and...

A countermeasure used against heat seeking missiles to reduce their effectiveness. Normally it involves the emittance of...

An artificial material, engineered to have a negative refractive index value, such that light or any other form of...

A fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic...

An instrument for eye surgery that directs intense xenon arc light through the transparent cornea lens to the retina where...

The exact mathematical description of the interactions of matter and intense electromagnetic fields, such as those that...

A metabolite is any small molecule that is a product of metabolism, the chemical processes that occur within living...

Approximation of a system of thermal equilibrium formed by the distribution of the kinetic energies of electrons in a gas...

A calcium indicator is a molecule that is sensitive to changes in calcium ion (Ca2+) concentrations in biological systems....

A material's ability to undergo plastic deformation, specifically elongation, without fracturing.

A bevel produced by grinding with a cup-shaped tool.

Decrease in cosmic ray activity that is observed approximately 24 hours after a solar flare, attributed to a shielding...

The line from a spark or other very hot source that has greater intensity than that of a line produced by an arc or flame...

Terahertz (THz) refers to a unit of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, denoting waves with frequencies between 0.1...

An ideal body that completely absorbs all radiant energy striking it and, therefore, appears perfectly black at all...

Diffraction efficiency is a measure of how effectively a diffractive optical element (DOE) or diffraction grating directs...

Method for reducing laser speckle in which the object field comes from a real diffuse object or the reconstructed object...

Remote inspection refers to the process of inspecting, evaluating, or monitoring assets, equipment, infrastructure, or...

A phonon is a quantum of vibrational energy associated with the periodic motion of atoms or molecules in a crystalline...

A method of producing x-ray exposures as short as 0.03 µs; the primary application is in ballistic radiography.

The process of heating and slowly cooling a solid material, like glass or metal, to stabilize its thermal, electrical or...

The capacity of a chiral substance such as a crystal or molecule to rotate the plane of polarized light that is transmitted...

An atomic clock is a highly precise timekeeping device that uses the vibrations or oscillations of atoms as a reference for...

The study and photographing of microscope specimens in ultraviolet light; using an optical microscope containing fluorite...

The unwanted and unpredictable fluctuations that distort a received signal and hence tend to obscure the desired message....

A nondestructive testing method for very large scale integration circuits, using a scanning electron microscope to monitor...

A special crystal that emits flashes of light when struck by alpha particles.

Characteristic of an object so small in size or so fine in structure that it cannot be seen by the unaided eye. A...

An antigen is any substance that is capable of triggering an immune response in an organism. Antigens are typically proteins...

A camera system used for microphotography that has a structure, such as a cylinder or surveyor belt, to rotate the documents...

A mechanical shutter that has had its timing escapement replaced with an electronic timing circuit. This circuit allows a...

An individual circuit component, complete in itself, such as a resistor, diode, capacitor or transistor. It is used as an...

Device in which contact ionization of atomic particles and thermionic electron emission are used to produce magnetically...

A retroreflector is an optical device or structure that reflects incident light or electromagnetic waves back to their...

A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a miniaturized device that integrates various laboratory functions and capabilities onto a single,...

A measurement device used to study the structure of matter using the diffraction of electromagnetic radiation.

In vitro is a Latin term that translates to "in glass." In scientific contexts, particularly in biology and medicine, it...

A chemical reaction involving the production of light. The reaction of ethylene with ozone is chemiluminescent.

A laser with a gain medium consisting of an organic dye, which is carbon-based. The dye is mixed with a solvent, allowing...

The film used in photographic dosimetry to record the types and amounts of ionizing radiation, such as x-rays and gamma...

A photodiode having a conducting grid that covers the surface of the photodiode junction and intercepts and wastes some of...

Automated optical inspection (AOI) is a technology used in manufacturing processes, particularly in electronics, to...

A cathode-ray tube combined with an electrostatic storage unit that is used to introduce, store and retrieve information...

A Kerr soliton refers to a specific type of soliton, a self-reinforcing wave packet, that arises in nonlinear optical...

An interference band such as Newton's ring.

A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used...

A device for converting sunlight into electrical energy, consisting of a sandwich of P-type and N-type semiconducting...

A miniature projecting device designed to enhance and reproduce the image generated by a smaller image-forming instrument....

The analysis of metal structure using an optical or electron microscope, generally with a camera, to record observations.

A CCD camera, or charge-coupled device camera, is a type of digital camera that utilizes a CCD image sensor to capture and...

1. To center an image or place it in any part of the television screen desired. Also applies to stills. 2. A single image of...

A binary semiconductor compound used as a substrate or active layer for diode lasers.

A laser crystal, also known as an active medium or gain medium, is a solid-state material used in the construction of...

An infrared device used in satellites and rockets to determine a heat horizon for the Earth at altitudes (above 200 miles)...

A laser diode in which the beam is confined to the region of the active layer with gain high enough to accomplish such...

The interaction of superimposed light from two separate sources that results in a combined intensity that is less than the...

The measurement of the ability of matter to absorb, transmit or reflect infrared radiation and the relating of the resultant...

A spectroscopic process that detects and analyzes the discharge from an extrinsic surface with less than bandgap light. This...

A semiconductor platelet laser that emits a coherent image by means of plane optical pumping over the platelet surface, and...

A device that uses low-level visible radiation or infrared radiation to produce a visual image of a night scene. These...

Retroreflection is a phenomenon in optics where light is reflected back toward its source, typically in a direction nearly...

A device that detects and measures the quantity of exposure to nuclear radiation. It uses a special glass rod that...

A transducer is a device or component that converts one form of energy into another. It is commonly used in various fields,...

A well controlled thin films technique for growing films with good crystal structure in ultra high vacuum environments at...

An alexandrite laser is a solid-state laser that utilizes a synthetic crystal made from the rare earth element alexandrite...

Prediction based on observations of nuclear masses in the valley of stability that indicates the maximum number of electrons...

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a nanolithography technique used for fabricating nanoscale patterns on a substrate. It is a...

A broadband filter is an electronic or electromagnetic device designed to pass a range of frequencies or signals within a...

An instrument used to detect radioactive materials: alpha particles or helium nuclei; beta particles or free electrons; and...

A photonic crystal that comprises magneto-optical material such that the optical response of the device depends on the...

Light produced when a metal is bombarded with high-velocity electrons causing small amounts of the metal to vaporize and...

In polarization-preserving optical fibers, the element used to induce birefringence. The SAP is highly doped to provide a...

An acronym of gamma ray amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. It is a gamma ray laser that operates between...

Light produced by visible radiation that moves from the light source to the object without reflection. With respect to...

Referring to compound semiconductor materials combining one element with two valence electrons and one or more with six....

CID, or charge injection device, camera refers to a type of imaging device that utilizes a specific kind of solid-state...

Hydrophobic is a term used to describe substances or materials that repel or do not readily interact with water. The word...

Visible laser radiation, often optically expanded and collimated, used to induced temporary blindness from within a walking...

Effect whereby two electrons lose synchronism with the accelerating field and are lost during synchronous radiation. The...

Acronym for profile resolution obtained by excitation. In its simplest form, probe involves the overlap of two...

A reflection grating is an optical component that consists of a series of closely spaced, parallel reflecting surfaces or...

1. In a plane Cartesian coordinate system, the vertical axis orthogonal to the X-axis. 2. In a quartz crystal structure, the...

In optics, the conduction of radiant energy through a medium. Often denotes the percentage of energy passing through an...

The amount of energy required to raise the energy level of an atom; a necessity if the atom is to radiate energy. High...

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is a manufacturing process that builds three-dimensional objects...

Diffuse stray light at the image plane of an optical system that results in reduced contrast and resolution.

The formation of an image by a pinhole aperture that transmits radiation, such as gamma radiation.

A type of conducting surface or material used to reflect radiant energy.

A crude area on the polished surface, produced during coarse grinding, that subsequent fine grinding does not remove, owing,...

The calculated normal distance from a photon source at which harmful interaction with the incident light will occur....

A vision defect commonly referred to as farsightedness. Results when the image of a distant object is focused beyond the...

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) refers to a phenomenon in wave physics, particularly in optics, where waves, such as light or...

A crystal that is characterized by its relatively poor electrical conductance.

A beam of light whose electrical field amplitude distribution is Gaussian. When such a beam is circular in cross section,...

A grating beamsplitter is an optical device that utilizes the principles of diffraction to split a beam of light into...

A heterochromatic photometric process using successive comparison of similar chromaticities and the calculation of relative...

An organizational method used in optical design computer programs. The technique produces one number (merit function) to...

A series of permanent holograms in dichromated gelatin formed by opening total page-composer apertures and setting a point...

A laser that generates a succession of pulses at a high enough repetition rate to appear continuous. The pump source is...

A device that serves to emit light of the same wavelength as the input light, only with an increase in intensity. It may be...

An embossed or marked disk, constructed out of a transparent material and used with a camera system to soften an image.

That branch of spectroscopy that applies to the study of interactions between energy and atomic nuclei. The simultaneous...

The angular change of an incident beam due to vibrational induced refractive index changes within a crystal.

The specification of allowable flaws in a surface by comparison to reference standards of quality. Two graded sets of...

A coherent fiber optic bundle made from fibers whose diameter changes gradually along its length. Used to magnify or reduce...

The creation of free electrons within a solid by the absorption of a sufficient amount of photons. The effect produces an...

An instrument usually consisting of a very long interferometer, 3 to 800 m, and a laser light source for the study and...

Epitaxial refers to the growth of a crystalline layer on a crystalline substrate in such a way that the orientation of the...

Ultraviolet (UV) fiber optics refers to optical fibers that are designed and optimized for the transmission of ultraviolet...

A line-scan camera, also known as a line-scan image sensor or linear array camera, is a type of digital camera designed to...

Ray tracing is a rendering technique used in computer graphics to simulate the way light interacts with objects in a scene....

Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) is a molecular biology technique used to rapidly amplify specific DNA or RNA...

Observed lengthening in wavelengths of the optical absorption edge of a semiconductor with the application of an electric...

The light flash, produced in flash photolysis, that is triggered within a second discharge tube by the third electrode. It...

1. A device generally used in a cathode-ray or camera tube to emit a stream of electrons moving at uniform velocity in a...

The signal formed when two signals, such as light waves, of different frequencies are present simultaneously in a nonlinear...

The gray-colored tones halfway between shadows and highlights in a reproduced image.

1. An instrument used to determine the visual range in an environment. 2. A type of photometer that artificially reduces an...

A handheld navigational instrument used to measure the elevation angle of celestial bodies such as the sun. An image of the...

A device that produces an interferogram that can be directly related to the temperature gradient and thereby provides a...

An object that has a sinusoidal variation of luminance. Its image will have a sinusoidal variation of illuminance and the...

A flaw deliberately introduced into an optical fiber to prepare it for cleaving.

An electric discharge in a low-pressure gas having a low-current density and a space potential near the cathode that is much...

Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical phenomenon that occurs when an intense laser beam passes through a...

An acronym for radioactive detection, identification and computation. The term refers to the detection and measurement of...

A method of producing large volumes of plastic optical components in which powdered or sheet plastic is pressed between...

A Risley prism, also known as a Risley prism pair or Risley rotating prism, is an optical device used for controlling the...

The particular orientation of the image, such as normal, canted, inverted or reverted.

A strip or annulus of glass coated with a semitransparent material such as inconel. The coating thickness, and as a result...

A digital camera is a device that captures and records still images or video in digital format. Unlike traditional film...

Introduced into the laser beam from localized fluctuations in current density within the plasma itself. These fluctuations...

Holography is a technique used to capture and reconstruct three-dimensional images using the principles of interference and...

Blaze height typically refers to a parameter in the context of diffraction gratings, which are optical devices consisting of...

An optical grating, in the context of optics and physics, refers to a device with a periodic structure of closely spaced,...

An optical instrument used to track and image a test vehicle (target) throughout its flight. The cinesextant frequently...

Multi-axis alignment refers to the process of aligning or adjusting components or systems in multiple spatial dimensions or...

Photoresist is a light-sensitive material used in photolithography processes, particularly in the fabrication of...

Mode hopping in the context of lasers refers to a phenomenon where a laser system abruptly switches from one longitudinal...

In the context of materials science and semiconductor physics, doping refers to the intentional introduction of impurities...

Optical confinement of matter with high field energies intended to induce a stable nuclear fusion interaction.

A 3D profile sensor, also known as a 3D profiling sensor or 3D depth sensor, is a technology that is used to capture and...

Popular process for silicon and polycrystalline production that consists of an alteration of the original state of a...

Carbonization is a process in which organic materials are heated in the absence of air, leading to the decomposition of the...

Attosecond photonics sources refer to devices or systems that generate extremely short pulses of light on the order of...

A theoretical instrument conceived of as a box that receives a beam of radiation of any arbitrary polarization angle and...

The projection of a plane or grid pattern of light onto an object. It can be used for the determination of three-dimensional...

A technique used in radiography to obtain an unblurred image of a moving object by the use of very short x-ray exposures,...

The study of radioactive substances and high-energy radiations such as x-rays and g-rays.

A machine vision lens is a specialized optical lens designed for use in machine vision systems, which are used for automated...

Videography refers to the process of capturing moving images and recording them in a digital format. It involves the use of...

Carrier injection refers to the process of introducing charge carriers (either electrons or holes) into a semiconductor...

The term quantum refers to the fundamental unit or discrete amount of a physical quantity involved in interactions at the...

Device that uses a coherent reference wave to record the interference patterns produced by incident ultrasonic waves on an...

An optically bistable device used for photonic switching, constructed of a multiple quantum well biased by an external...

A thermoplastic or optically transmitting hard plastic produced by applying polymerization initiator and heat to a monomer.

An imaging technique in which an object moving through an interference field formed in space scatters light and is spatially...

The maximum rate at which temporally disjunct optical signals can be produced or detected.

The use of chemicals or radiation to induce a desired change in a substance; e.g., some optical adhesives are set by...

A telescope that produces an erect image. Erection is achieved either by a lens (for a long instrument) or a prism (for a...

A device used to measure the opening time of a shutter. The most common devices depend on the charging or discharging of an...

Dispersion refers to the phenomenon where different wavelengths (colors) of light travel at different speeds when passing...

A photograph reduced to the microscopic scale and stored on a microfilm as seen with microfiches for the purpose of storing...

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for...

A small instrument containing a picture support and a pair of magnifying lenses so arranged that the left eye sees only the...

1. Lines of the same color. 2. A term used in photoelastic stress analysis to refer to the interference fringes produced in...

A diffraction grating is an optical component consisting of a surface with a periodic structure of equally spaced, parallel...

Chirality is a property of certain molecules and objects in which they are non-superimposable on their mirror images. In...

A laser rangefinder is a device that uses laser technology to measure the distance between the device and a target. It...

The Kerr effect, named after the physicist John Kerr who first observed it in 1875, is a nonlinear optical phenomenon where...

A laser system consisting of a planar PN junction within a single crystal of gallium arsenide. The pair of parallel,...

A plastic used in molded optical components. Styrene elements can be combined with acrylic elements to produce achromatic...

A component used to modify light rays by diffraction; the HOE is produced by recording the interference pattern of two laser...

A mirror blank refers to the initial piece of material from which a mirror is made. It is typically a flat or slightly...

Free-space optics (FSO), also known as optical wireless communication or optical wireless networking, refers to the...

A near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer is an analytical instrument used to measure the absorption, transmission, or reflection...

Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effects of...

A silicon photodiode is a semiconductor device that converts light into an electrical current. It is a type of photodetector...

An optical device that produces a line image lying along the axis from a point source of light; therefore, it has no...

Conductor element for use in integrated electro-optic systems that measures current flowing through it.

Production of a repeated image of a transmitted beam through a diffractive optical element such as a holographic card or...

A Michelson-type interference microscope used to produce interference patterns of reflective specimens through the...

Colors that produce an achromatic color when additively mixed.

A natural abrasive, produced from corundum in grades ranging from rough to fine, used in the grinding and lapping of glass.

Acronym for self-aligned polysilicon interconnect N-channel. A metal-gate process that uses aluminum for the metal-oxide...

The process of aligning the crystallites in a piezoelectric material by placing a large DC field across the element at an...

A mass spectrometer used to detect ions formed by photo- and charge-exchange ionization of gases, such as those in the lunar...

In an avalanche photodiode, the gain multiplied by the signal frequency in MHz.

Also known as gas focusing. The introduction of an inert gas into a cathode-ray tube for the concentration of the electron...

The stationary state of an ion, atom or molecule, above the ground state that is produced by the interaction with the...

An electron-beam lithography (EBL) system is a sophisticated nanofabrication tool used in the semiconductor industry and...

An image that appears when a hologram is illuminated by a suitable light source, generally a laser beam.

Techniques used in biology to produce microradiographs of cells, tissues or small organisms.

Piezoresistance is a phenomenon in materials science and physics where the electrical resistance of a material changes in...

A quantum well is a structure in quantum mechanics that confines particles, such as electrons or holes, in one spatial...

An intensified charge-coupled device that uses a large negative charge at the grid to switch off the flow of electrons at...

A fiber optic component or system designed in such a way that it can be operated by people without specialized knowledge of...

The formation and display of three-dimensional images by ultrasonic energy. In one technique, the energy pulses from an...

A device used to accelerate the electrons in a free-electron laser. There are several types, including the induction linear...

The fundamental wavelength standard of time or frequency. An atomic standard, it is properly expressed as 9,192,631,770...

A blur circle refers to the out-of-focus region in an image captured by an optical system. When an object in a scene is not...

A plane along which destructive interference takes place.

An alteration in the direction of the magnetic induction at the interface between two media of different permeability.

An electrically conductive layer for carrying off static charges that might accumulate on a surface.

A device that produces brief flashes of light for observing the behavior of an object during a short interval. One of the...

A gas laser equipped with Brewster windows and concave mirrors (having unlike reflective properties) at each end of the tube...

gas laser using ionized argon as the active medium and applying electronic excitation in order to produce the laser light

A Laurent polarimeter is an instrument used in optics for measuring the rotation of plane-polarized light caused by...

A free-electron laser (FEL) is a type of laser that generates coherent, high-intensity electromagnetic radiation by using a...

A defect in infrared systems that appears as a dark circular area on a displayed image, caused by radiation reflecting into...

A process in which a mixture of one or more monomers, plus a catalyst, polymerize under exposure to light radiation....

Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy is an advanced fluorescence microscopy technique that leverages the...

Optical fiber is a thin, flexible, transparent strand or filament made of glass or plastic used for transmitting light...

A time-to-amplitude converter (TAC) is an electronic circuit that converts a time interval between two events into an...

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that integrates digital information, typically in the form of computer-generated...

Technique for measuring the volume bulk of materials as they move along a conveyor with an accuracy of better than 1...

That layer in a semiconductor injection laser or light-emitting diode that provides optical gain.

Topology is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the properties of space that are preserved under continuous...

In printing, a translucent screen used with lenses to provide an even distribution of diffused light.

A method of fabricating an optical waveguide by melting the core and clad glasses in two suitably joined concentric...

In image processing, methods of reducing image defects that result from false data. Techniques include sampling, linear...

A method of producing high-quality plastic optics in large volumes by injecting the heated, liquified plastic at high...

Optimization method used in optical design computer programs that employs a variable-by-variable approach to construct new...

Heatless light emissions from living organisms caused by the combination of oxygen and pigments such as luciferin.

A light source, such as the sun or an incandescent lamp, that freely penetrates ordinary glass bulbs and emits in the...

A CCD device for sensing longer wavelengths, such as NIR and IR, that has a deeper depletion region than would be necessary...

Also known as transverse mode. The configurations of energy storage, relative to the structure of a laser resonator, that...

In chemistry, the addition of an inert substance to reduce the concentration of a species. In colorimetry, addition of white...

A type of flat panel display made up of a layer of gas between two glass plates. The glass is coated with parallel...

The tendency to adjust an instrument such as a microscope so that the viewed image appears much closer than infinity.

A photovoltaic device that consists of multiple p-n junctions to produce a greater efficiency when in use than that of...

A type of interferometer noted for producing narrow multiple-beam interference fringes. As a result, when compared with the...

Any material that derives its energy from chemically or electrically induced reactions; isotope or radium excitation is used...

A technique used to generate a phase shift between reference and sample light beams. The phase shift can be performed...

The transition boundary between P-type and N-type materials in a semiconductor.

An intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) camera is an advanced imaging device that combines the capabilities of both an...

A dome-shaped structure used for some optical instruments in place of a flat window. The transparent material should be of...

A type of quarter-wave retarder in the form of a glass rhomb; light entering the retarder undergoes two total internal...

A modulator is a device or component that modifies a carrier signal in order to encode information for transmission over a...

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses...

An instrument designed to produce an x-ray spectrum of a material as an aid in identifying it. This technique is...

Translucent collector developed to compensate for the partial blocking of a flat surface's collection angle that normally...

A device that is used to produce or analyze plane-polarized light. It may be a Nicol prism or some other form of calcite...

In image processing, a morphology operator in which a structuring element or probe of a particular shape is moved over the...

A device similar to distributed feedback lasers in construction and operation, but in which the period grating that produces...

A form of photometric measurement, often used with light sources that are transparent or fluctuating, in which a...

A photoelectric detector consisting of a glass tube internally coated with a low conductance material. Voltage applied along...

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional environment or experience that can be...

A cine camera that exposes a series of individual frames to record the changes in a subject that slowly alters with time....

The frequency domain is a concept used in signal processing and analysis to represent signals and data in terms of their...

The term light field refers to the spatial distribution of light rays traveling in all directions through a given space. It...

A laser cavity, also known as an optical cavity or resonator, is a fundamental component of a laser system. It is a confined...

Pertaining to a device that responds to optical power, emits or modifies optical radiation, or utilizes optical radiation...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, single-stranded RNA molecules, typically consisting of about 19 to 24 nucleotides,...

An optical lens manufactured to control the transmission of light over a specified wavelength range. Low absorption lenses...

An apparatus, designed for use with a camera, that is used to rapidly open the path from lens to film, to maintain the...

An interferometric method for describing the surface shape of large coated or uncoated optical flats. The procedure uses a...

A technique for improving the structure density of thin-film coatings by bombarding the growing film with accelerated ions...

A camera capable of making successive exposures on a continuous film driven by accurately spaced sprocket holes (a motion...

A crystalline semiconductor material that transmits in the infrared.

Fusion ignition refers to the point in a controlled nuclear fusion reaction where the energy released by the fusion...

The unusual and anisotropic diamagnetic quality observed in particular crystals such as those composed of bismuth.

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

The plane diagram produced by plotting one of the three chromaticity coordinates (X,Y,Z) against another. The most common...

Calorimetry is a branch of science that involves the measurement of heat flow in physical or chemical processes. It...

In physics, the law of reversibility is often associated with the concept of reversibility in thermodynamics. The law...

A surface heat-treating process that produces a highly stressed surface. In case-hardening of glass, a plate of glass is...

An infrared lens is an optical component specifically designed and optimized for transmitting, focusing, or manipulating...

An aptamer is a short, single-stranded DNA or RNA molecule that can bind to a specific target molecule with high affinity...

A nonoptical surface, within lenses and lens mounts, that contributes largely to flare by reflecting light into the image...

Computer numerically controlled (CNC) grinding is a manufacturing process that utilizes computerized controls and precision...

A nonlinear crystal used to modulate a polarized beam of light by means of the Pockels effect. A Pockels cell is used as a...

An autocollimator is an optical instrument used for measuring small angular deviations with high precision. It operates on...

A technique for creating optimal performance in a system by producing a specific beam irradiance distribution, usually...

A type of photoconductive detector in which germanium, usually doped with boron, gallium and indium, serves as a...

Irregularities and disturbances in the atmosphere that are of particular interest because they induce random temporal and...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics and biomedical research to obtain...

Die bonding is a critical process in semiconductor manufacturing and microelectronics assembly, where a semiconductor die or...

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of...

Graphene is a two-dimensional allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal...

A source made to glow by electrons that are produced either electrically or by isotopes of various elements.

A holographic grating is a type of diffraction grating that is produced using holographic recording techniques. It consists...

1. A prism used in some instruments to bend light 90° before it enters the objective. 2. A dispersing prism located in...

A GaAlAs laser is a type of semiconductor laser diode that emits light in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic...

Nanopositioning refers to the precise and controlled movement or manipulation of objects or components at the nanometer...

In optics, a pattern, such as the Buchmann-Meyer pattern, that may be viewed when the record surface is illuminated by a...

A semiconductor diode operating in either a coherent or incoherent mode that is used as a near-infrared or visible source in...

A concave mirror that has the form of a paraboloid of revolution. The paraboloidal mirror may have only a portion of a...

Laser ablation is a process that involves the removal or erosion of material from a target surface using laser energy. This...

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is a nonlinear optical process that occurs when two photons with the same frequency combine...

Parallel scanning refers to a method of acquiring data or images simultaneously from multiple sources or in parallel, rather...

1. The combination of the effects of two or more stimuli in any given sense to form a single sensation. With respect to...

Transparent glassy and or crystalline structured materials engineered from inorganic, non-metallic materials via various...

Nonlinear optical materials are substances that exhibit optical properties that are not linearly proportional to the...

Microscopy is a scientific technique that involves the use of microscopes to observe and study objects that are too small to...

A system in which a sequence of direct measurements of the target position is fed into a tracking filter that may produce...

Optofluidics is an interdisciplinary field that combines principles from optics and fluidics to create devices and systems...

The noise produced in a photodetector when the photocathode is shielded from all external optical radiation and operating...

A television system that is capable of producing an image whose colors approximate the colors of the original, by the use of...

A quantum dot is a nanoscale semiconductor structure, typically composed of materials like cadmium selenide or indium...

A vacuum tube in which a magnetic field is superimposed onto the tube's electrical field. When the two fields are aligned,...

A well plate, also known as a microplate or microtiter plate, is a flat plate with multiple small wells or depressions...

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrays of subwavelength-scale artificial structures, often referred to as meta-atoms or...

An interferometer in which interference is produced between wavefronts that are sheared in the sample object by a small...

A method of producing an essentially constant output signal from an electronic circuit despite variations in the strength of...

A technique for determining the nonlinear optical properties of a sample material by moving the sample through a focused...

A semiconductor device that functions as an electrically controlled switch for AC loads.

A device used to compare the luminous intensities of two sources by locating a point between the two light sources where the...

Modulation transfer function of an optical element when used for transporting images from a lambertian source such as...

Fizeau fringes are interference fringes observed in an interferometer, specifically in a Fizeau interferometer. The Fizeau...

A plane-parallel interferometer that yields extremely high contrast over a wide range of finesse values without...

Nd:YAG laser refers to a solid-state laser that utilizes neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:Y3Al5O12) as the gain...

A semiconductor material in which the dopants create holes as the majority charge carrier. It is formed by doping with...

A position inside a crystal lattice that is not one of the proper lattice sites in the crystal. Impurity ions of the proper...

An experimental lens used to produce interference fringes. A positive lens is cut into halves along its center, and the...

Pixel binning, also known as pixel merging or pixel combining, is a technique used in digital imaging and camera technology....

The material favored for study of interaction of high-acoustic intensities with free carriers. Tellurium is the...

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a method of achieving nuclear fusion, a process where two atomic nuclei combine to...

A single-particle scattering technique in which an incident laser beam is tightly focused by means of lenses to yield a...

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is an advanced imaging technique that combines holography and digital image processing...

Ophthalmology is a branch of medicine that focuses on the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the eyes and visual system....

Volumetric imaging refers to the capture, visualization, and analysis of three-dimensional (3D) information from a volume of...

Spectroscopy used to study the concentration, diffusion and Brownian motion of small particles suspended in a fluid by...

The observation of a reproduced television picture on the face of a cathode-ray tube.

A controlled random search process, such as generalized simulated annealing, that has been incorporated into many optical...

A digital twin refers to a virtual representation or digital counterpart of a physical object, system, or process. This...

A frame taken with a CCD camera over an exposure length of zero seconds with the lens cap on or the shutter closed and no...

A camera with two taking lenses and synchronized shutters. Two images are recorded simultaneously on separate frames,...

Particle acceleration refers to the process by which charged particles, such as electrons or protons, gain kinetic energy...

The formation of an interferogram by means of two holograms on the same recording medium, often used for determining small...

Referred to as SWCNTs, these cylindrical nanostructures composed of a folded sheet of graphene can be used as near-infrared...

The perceptual term for that aspect of color described by words such as red, yellow or blue. Achromatic colors, such as...

A type of laser welding that produces short-duration vapor pockets without buildup of heat in the part, useful for parts...

A photonic cavity, also known as an optical cavity, is a structure that confines electromagnetic radiation within a certain...

A photodetector, also known as a photosensor or photodiode, is a device that detects and converts light into an electrical...

Deep ultraviolet (DUV or deep-UV) refers to a specific range of ultraviolet light with shorter wavelengths than those in the...

Laser texturing is a manufacturing process that involves using a laser beam to selectively modify the surface of a material,...

The effect discovered by Faraday in 1845 whereby nonoptically active materials or substances become capable of rotating the...

A solar cell that uses a thermoelectric converter, consisting of two sheets of metal with a semiconductor sandwiched between...

Design and engineering consulting services refer to professional services provided by specialized firms or individuals to...

The visual perception of motion when fixed stimuli are exposed in rapid temporal and spatial succession.

An optical system that is designed to produce a high temperature in a specified area by the optical direction and...

A category of systems designed to communicate a photo taken from the air (e.g., aircraft, balloon, satellite) to a ground...

A reflector that exhibits specular reflectance, producing a direct image of its source. Also known as regular reflectance.

A charge-injection device (CID) refers to a class of devices that manipulate and detect electrical charge within a...

A method used in integrated optics; formed by growing an epitaxial layer of active material, removing it from its base and...

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot onboard. UAVs are remotely...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a widely used molecular biology technique used to amplify a specific segment of DNA...

A closed vessel with electrodes of different potentials that is used to determine how much ionization took place in a gas...

The combination of the organic dye in a stained specimen and the antibodies produced that is detected by exposure to light.

A laser that produces emission in two or more transverse or longitudinal modes.

In optics, the production of maxima and minima by the superimposition of two sets of interference fringes from light of two...

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...

The inherent laser amplitude noise relative to the average optical power produced by the laser; the RIN decreases rapidly as...

Photogrammetry is a technique used to obtain accurate three-dimensional measurements of objects and environments through the...

The figure seen through or imaged by an optical system. It may contain structures, natural or artificial, or it may be the...

A precision positioning device used to produce rotary motion.

A convention that defines specific dimensions of an optical system, such as the image distance or radius of curvature of a...

A Peltier cooler, also known as a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) or thermoelectric module, is a solid-state device that uses...

Description of a material, such as a water-soluble salt, that will continue absorbing moisture from the surrounding...

The entire range of colors a specific color model can produce, represented as a three-dimensional solid.

Hydrophilic is a term used to describe substances or materials that have an affinity for water. The word hydrophilic comes...

A pump-probe technique whereby a single wavelength source may be used in order to excite a given sample to determine...

A technique proposed for studying the atomic structure of crystals by measuring the interference pattern generated when the...

1. In optics, the ability of a lens system to reproduce the points, lines and surfaces in an object as separate entities in...

High power laser ablation device that by pulsed operation produces holes of controllable dimension on the scale of microns....

The instrument used to collect thermal radiation information on an object by scanning. It consists basically of a detector,...

A vibrational transition refers to a change in the vibrational energy of a molecule. Molecules consist of atoms that are...

The spreading of potentially equal radiation frequencies that results in broadening of the spectral line. This effect is...

The science of producing, recording, storing, transmitting and displaying visual images by any system (photographic, video,...

A technique used for noncontact inspection of semiconductor wafers. The material is illuminated by an excitation source that...

Anisotropic is a term used to describe a material or substance that exhibits different properties or behaviors in different...

A traveling wave tube (TWT) containing a photocathode and window that, receiving a laser beam, produces a modified...

An electrowetting display (EWD) is a type of electronic display technology that utilizes the principles of electrowetting to...

A self-healing, index-matching, nonporous coating for optical components that can eliminate production difficulties and...

Laser active elements typically refers to the substances or materials within a laser system that play a critical role in the...

Time-lapse optical coherence tomography (OCT) refers to a medical imaging technique that captures a series of sequential OCT...

Structural color refers to coloration in materials that is not caused by pigments or dyes but is instead a result of the...

A linear image sensor is a type of solid-state electronic device used to capture and convert light into electrical signals....

A fiber optic preform is a cylindrical glass rod or tube used as the starting material for manufacturing optical fibers. It...

Nonlinear optics is a branch of optics that studies the optical phenomena that occur when intense light interacts with a...

Referring to the bandwidth and spectrum location of the signal produced by television or radar scanning.

An achromat, in the context of optics, refers to a type of lens or lens system designed to reduce chromatic aberration....

Thermography is a technique that involves the use of an infrared imaging device, called a thermal camera or infrared camera,...

Optical aberration such that image magnification varies with ray distance from the optical axis in a radial distortion.

A spectrophotometer having a prism or, more frequently, a grating for the study and recording of infrared spectra. It...

A device used to scan, with a small, intensely bright spot, portions of a picture surface and to transform the original...

Surface analysis by means of photon induced electron emission. PEM methods provide high lateral resolution of the observed...

The property of an optical system whereby only the effects of diffraction determine the quality of the image it produces.

The measurement of first- and higher order properties of a lens and its formed image, including effective focal length, back...

A type of glass used in telescope mirrors, formed by adding a nucleating agent to standard glass and then heating it until...

A projecting beam or other structure supported only at one end.

The term half bandwidth (HBW) generally refers to the width of a spectral band or frequency range at half of its maximum...

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of optical filter that is inscribed or "written" into the core of an optical fiber. It...

A rare gas used in small high-pressure arc lamps to produce a high-intensity source of light closely resembling the color...

Film that produces color negatives or transparencies by the use of three emulsions, one coated over the other, that are each...

The axes of symmetry in a crystal structure. See also biaxial crystal; uniaxial crystal.

One of various types of fluorescent screens used to detect x-ray radiation. Photographic film is mildly sensitive to x-rays,...

The pressure in the gas region of an x-ray tube that has been reduced below 0.1 mm, the pressure necessary for the tube.

A lens blank is a piece of optical material in a raw, unfinished state, typically in the form of a disk or block, from which...

Photometry is the branch of science that deals with the measurement of light, particularly in terms of its intensity and the...

A material widely used as a transparent conductive coating.

The application of coherent wavefront techniques to the determination of the physical state of a system without appreciably...

The production and analysis of spectra with the use of a spectrograph.

A robotic process commonly employed by automakers that enables high-speed and flexible production throughput by using...

The effect in which photons are absorbed and excite the electrons; the electrons move from the valence band to the...

An accurately produced hole of any size and shape that is used as a masking device in an optical system. Pinhole apertures...

A system used for gratings that consists of a concave mirror, a grating and a plate holder mounted normal to the grating to...

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that...

Oscillator device composed of a semiconducting diode in a coaxial resonating cavity. When the biasing current is applied to...

A process used to control thickness and parallelism precisely during the production of plane-parallel plates. Elements are...

Pyramid error in optics refers to an aberration in the shape of an optical surface, particularly in the context of mirrors....

A type of camera that has scales or other arrangements by which successive exposures can be lined up and equally spaced on a...

Instantaneous field of view (iFOV) is a term commonly used in the context of remote sensing, imaging systems, and optical...

Minimum object distance, often abbreviated as MOD, refers to the closest distance at which a camera lens or optical system...

A theoretical, ideal lens capable of producing perfect images. Used as a lens design and analysis tool to image collimated...

In the context of thin film deposition processes such as evaporation or sputtering, masks are used to selectively deposit...

The magnetic flux that, linking a circuit of one turn, produces in it an electromotive force of one volt as it is reduced to...

The production of a block by attaching the optical elements to a plate by means of individual buttons of pitch or other...

A dichroic coating, also known as a dichroic filter or dichroic mirror, is an optical coating designed to selectively...

Resonance can be defined in various contexts, including physics, chemistry, and music. Here are definitions for resonance in...

A camera that uses a rotating mirror to project sequential images onto lenses that are arranged in an arc. The reflected...

A radioactive element that is placed or injected into a system to obtain an autoradiogram of the system. It is used in a...

In digital image processing, a method of convolution that reduces random noise by replacing the value of each pixel with the...

Polymers are large molecules composed of repeating structural units called monomers. These monomers are chemically bonded...

The creation of topographical maps and charts from a stereographic record produced through the overlapping of consecutive...

Attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectroscopy is a technique used in analytical chemistry to obtain IR spectra of samples....

An arc lamp that has its cavity filled with krypton to produce a light source with unique characteristics.

In coherent optical communications systems, a laser used at the receiving end to produce a steady wave that is combined with...

Magneto-optics refers to the study and manipulation of the interaction between magnetic fields and light (electromagnetic...

A type of radiation detector that depends on the ionization produced in a gas by the passage of a charged particle through...

Flow cytometry is a powerful technique used in biology and medicine for the quantitative analysis of the physical and...

In optical emission spectroscopy, the reduction in radiant power in the central portion of spectral lines arising from the...

High dynamic range (HDR) refers to a technology that allows for a broader and more dynamic range of luminosity in visual...

A type of streak camera that uses film wrapped around a drum, which moves at a constant speed to record the changing shape...

Machine learning (ML) is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that focuses on the development of algorithms and...

FMCW lidar stands for frequency-modulated continuous wave lidar. It is a type of lidar (light detection and ranging)...

A laser using a dye solution as its active medium. Its output is a short pulse of broad spectral content and its achievable...

RTSP, or real-time streaming protocol, is a network control protocol designed for controlling streaming media servers. It is...

Contains elements which produce lasing., e.g. gain medium, oscillator mirrors as well as housing.

The emission of radiant energy produced by the passage of an electrical current through an appropriate electrolyte in which...

A photographic emulsion of the silver-halide type that is used to record the path of a charged traveling particle. The...

A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a type of electronic image sensor used in various imaging devices, including digital...

In the context of imaging, particularly digital imaging and printing, "orange peel" refers to a texture or visual distortion...

The successive analysis or synthesizing of the light values or other similar characteristics of the components of a picture...

Laser-mediated gene transfer refers to a technique in molecular biology and genetic engineering that utilizes lasers to...

A camera used to reduce originals onto film for easy storage. There are two basic types: one in which the film is fixed...

The standards of MIL-O-13830 set by the US government relative to tolerable surface scratches and other such defects in an...

An instrument designed to measure the rate of rotation of components, such as shafts.

A mount for an optic element or optics assembly, designed so that all six degrees of freedom are singly constrained. This...

A laser radar application in which a sequence of direct measurements of target position is fed into a tracking filter to...

A high-resolution spectroscopic device commonly used in the early 20th century as a component of double-beam...

The refraction that would take place in an idealized atmosphere where the refractive index is reduced uniformly with height...

An infrared camera, also known as a thermal imaging camera or IR camera, is a device that captures and visualizes the...

A device that acquires a signal and then stores it for a specified period of time before processing, and used, for example,...

An APD detector, or avalanche photodiode detector, is a type of photodetector used to detect light or optical signals by...

A length that denotes the size of the unit cell in a crystal lattice. With respect to the cubic crystal, this is the length...

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) refers to a technology that converts heat energy into electricity using the principles of...

Of evaporative coatings, a condition resulting when small chunks of material fly from the hot crucible onto the substrate...

Used for high-resolution surface study with subnanometer resolution. XRIM uses interfacial phase contrast with application...

An electronic transducer, either fixed or adjustable, that reduces the amplitude of a wave without causing significant...

A system of modular mechanical components for building precision optical systems. The basic equipment includes a variety of...

The process of producing a visible two-dimensional image of a scene that is dependent on differences in thermal or infrared...

The internet of things (IoT) refers to a network of interconnected physical devices, vehicles, appliances, and other objects...

The bending of an electron stream that occurs when the stream travels through a medium such as very thin metal foil.

A type of cable made up of two conductors; one conductor is inside of and concentric with the other.

An astronomical mirror, also known as a telescope mirror or primary mirror, is a key component of a reflecting telescope. It...

A plate made of a double-refracting crystal having such a density that a phase difference of one-quarter cycle is formed...

A technique used in integrated optics where a groove is cut on a substrate surface and covered by a thin film to facilitate...

The inductance of a closed circuit in which an electromotive force of one volt is produced when the electric current in the...

A Nernst glower, also known simply as a Nernst lamp or Nernst filament, is a type of incandescent lamp or radiant heater...

Radiation that does not produce free electrons and ions, or electrically charged particles.

Essentially, a hologram of a hologram, in which the first-generation hologram is masked with a narrow slit. During image...

Two 30° prisms that are used to produce constant deviation when rotated by equal and opposite angles.

Two simple meniscus lenses arranged symmetrically on either side of the aperture stop, providing reduced coma, lateral color...

The luminescence of a substance that is produced by energy within it (e.g., radioactive material).

A fiber-coupled photoconductive antenna (FCPA) is a type of optoelectronic device that combines a photoconductive antenna...

A solid-state laser is a type of laser that uses a solid gain medium (as opposed to a liquid or gas) to produce coherent...

A form of an element that cannot demonstrate optical activity as a result of dextrogyrate and levogyrate effects that are...

A form of liquid crystal with an appearance of moving, threadlike structures, particularly visible when observed in thick...

Radiography using the emission of x-rays to form an image of the structure penetrated by the radiation.

A lens having an extremely high aperture and used in the recording of x-ray fluorescent screen images. It often is specially...

Qualitatively, the inverse of the amount of velocity produced by the application of a sinusoidal force to a system;...

A detector-Dewar assembly typically refers to a combination of a detector and a Dewar flask used in scientific instruments,...

QLED stands for quantum dot light-emitting diode. QLED is a display technology that utilizes quantum dots, which are...

Decibels referenced to one milliwatt; often used to specify power ratings for semiconductor diode lasers.

An instrument designed to produce very hard x-rays by the acceleration of electrons in a varying magnetic field.

Rare earth dopants refer to elements from the lanthanide series, also known as rare earth elements, that are intentionally...

A prism having several plane polished surfaces, some to transmit light, some to reflect light, and some to serve both...

A technique for depositing a material coating on metal, ceramic, semiconductor or polymer substrates. The interaction of...

A lensless photographic camera that uses a small sharp-edged hole as its aperture. The light passed by this aperture onto...

A diverging lens is a type of lens that causes parallel rays of light to spread out or diverge. It is thinner in the center...

Any device in which the passage of electrons through a vacuum, gas or semiconductor is the principal means of conduction.

A polymer produced as a result of photochemical processes.

The improper exposure of a radiation-sensitive medium that results when there is too much radiation exposing the medium, or...

A specific, right-angle prism having a transmission grating replicated on its hypotenuse face and used in applications...

A mask-alignment microscope used to produce and inspect microcircuits in the electronics industry. It provides flat-field,...

The surface of an element of a compound lens that will produce the cemented interface. The curves of this interface are...

An OLED display formed by creating an array of OLED pixels connected by intersecting anode and cathode conductors arranged...

Positioning generally refers to the determination or identification of the location or placement of an object, person, or...

A metal coil or coils wrapped around the outside of the neck of a cathode-ray tube. Current passing through the coils...

The absorption of a photon raising an electron across the forbidden gap from valence to conduction band of the semiconductor...

1. With respect to angular subtense, a source of light, such as a star, that is very small. In a lab, a point source may be...

An optical table, also known as an optical bench or an optical breadboard, is a specialized platform used in optics...

An interferometer similar in construction to a Fabry-Perot interferometer but having a rear mirror with high reflectivity,...

A slight displacement in the position of a spectral line because of an alteration in frequency, as a result, in turn, of a...

The Golgi staining technique (also called the black reaction) makes it possible to look at the nervous system by rendering...

Powder used to produce a smooth optical surface through abrasive polishing. Compounds may produce a surface finish specified...

A plasma accelerator is a type of particle accelerator that uses electric fields and magnetic fields to accelerate charged...

A blackbody source, often simply referred to as a blackbody, is a theoretical or practical physical object that absorbs all...

A solid-state semiconducting structure (basically one of the bolometers) that changes electrical resistance with...

A self-interference effect that generates random patterns; secondary speckle pattern (SSP) typically occurs in diffuse...

A compound lens consisting of two negative lenses of flint glass. A double-convex lens of crown glass is cemented between...

Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often...

A camera equipped with angular scales in altitude and azimuth. The scale readings are imprinted on the film when an exposure...

Pixel pitch refers to the distance between the centers of two adjacent pixels on a display screen or imaging sensor. It is...

A doubly refracting mineral used to produce polarizing prisms. It is uniaxial negative and in the trigonal division of the...

An optical fiber in which ions of a rare-earth element, such as neodymium, erbium or holmium, have been incorporated into...

A magnetometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the strength and/or direction of a magnetic field. It can detect...

A gas, such as oxygen, that improves the speed and efficiency of a laser cutter or welder when applied to the work surface,...

A specific type of filter designed to reduce the amount of light scattered by reflections from the edges of optical...

Breakdown of a gas produced by the attenuation of an intense pulse of focused laser light.

An infrared detector is a device that is used to detect and measure infrared radiation, which lies beyond the visible...

An exciton is a quasiparticle that represents the bound state of an electron and a hole in a solid-state material, typically...

The nondestructive analysis and recording of industrial components based on the absorption of relatively low-energy neutrons...

Quantum sensing refers to a class of sensing technologies that leverage principles from quantum mechanics to enhance the...

The analysis of the atomic structure of a sample by means of a source radiation that is absorbed and emitted by the sample...

Controlled beam technology that introduces beams of sunlight through holes in a roof that are relayed throughout the...

Discharge that results when a doped semiconductor crystal with a PN junction is charged with a low-voltage direct current....

Denoting a finished circular edge. A decentered lens is adjusted on a centering chuck so that its image runs true, and the...

Chalcogenide refers to a class of compounds containing elements from group 16 of the periodic table, which includes sulfur...

In detectors, the ability to switch on and off electronically, thus producing the effect of a mechanical shutter.

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

Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with...

The detection and measurement of nuclear and x-ray radiation.

A tool made by imbedding small particles of diamond in the working edge. In the optical field, the most commonly used...

Conduction of an electric current through a chemical compound in its natural state, solution or as a molten, to decompose...

Fluorescence imaging technique in which the excitation light from the objective is directed into the sample producing...

A high-speed motion camera, also known as a high-speed camera or slow-motion camera, is a specialized imaging device...

The reproduction of a picture or image, produced by scanning the image and converting it into electrical signals that carry...

A nondestructive test, also referred to as LASAT, that uses a high-energy laser pulse that is targeted on an adhesively...

A channel for communication with the source in an otherwise unidirectional network, such as a channel that provides...

Irradiation of a cylindrical crystal with an x-ray beam resulting in Bragg diffraction that produces a slightly enlarged...

A cable backbone used to interconnect local area networks at various sites (corporate offices and factories, for example) in...

An optical clock is a highly precise and advanced timekeeping device that relies on the oscillations of electromagnetic...

An advanced magnetic device used in x-ray lithography to beam x-rays onto the surface of silicon wafers used for...

A hologram in which diffraction is produced by the silver image, resulting in a dimmer image than in a phase hologram, where...

A test chamber designed to expose the subject being tested to external conditions, such as heat, shock, pressure and...

In the context of electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, a wafer refers to a thin, flat disk or substrate made of a...

The ratio of the power of the carrier wave to that of unwanted signal distortions, or noise, before any nonlinear signal...

An acid used to etch the surfaces of particular materials. For glass, hydrofluoric acid is used either as a liquid or a...

A ray of light that falls upon or strikes a surface of an object such as a lens. It is said to be incident to the surface.

Optical design and engineering services involve the development, customization, and optimization of optical systems and...

A photometric instrument having two prisms clamped in optical contact to produce a photometric field with an acute dividing...

That portion of physics concerned with motion in the abstract, such as of points or space figures, and separated from its...

Coating carried out in a sealed chamber evacuated by a mechanical pump in series with an oil diffusion pump to a pressure...

Hyperspectral resolution refers to the level of detail or granularity in the spectral information captured by a...

The principle that electronic energy transitions occur at such speeds that the nuclei of the atoms in the molecular system...

Describing the standard television method of raster scanning in which the image is the product of two fields, each of which...

Polarization refers to the orientation of oscillations in a transverse wave, such as light waves, radio waves, or other...

The technique of producing spectrograms in wavelengths beyond 120 nm by the use of a diffraction grating and a Schumann...

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is an advanced optical imaging technique used in microscopy to enhance the...

A structure consisting of a thin film of liquid crystal sandwiched between light-polarizing filters that have received a...

Attenuation refers to the gradual loss or reduction of intensity, force, or magnitude of a particular property as it...

The conduction of electricity in a gas as a result of the ions generated by collisions between electrons and gas molecules.

The image distortion produced by a panoramic camera with a swinging lens or a swinging mirror in front of a fixed lens. The...

Birefringence is an optical property of certain materials that causes them to exhibit different refractive indices for light...

A high-speed cine camera that produces discrete frames of a continuous event as opposed to the flow photographic record of a...

Laser surgery refers to a medical procedure in which a laser, or focused beam of light, is used as a precision tool to cut,...

Optical noise refers to undesirable fluctuations or disturbances in an optical signal that can affect the quality or...

Spherical aberration is an optical aberration that occurs when light rays passing through a lens or curved optical surface...

A type of laser welding of thin materials using a defocused or low-power carbon dioxide laser beam. The energy is absorbed...

A solid-state panel of the photoconductor-electroluminescent type. The photoconductive layer, sensitive to x-rays, is coated...

A term referring to an optical force field used to trap and stabilize particles acted upon by a force such as laser light.

Typically represented by the Greek letter μ, magnetic permeability is the measure of a material's ability to generate and...

Spatial resolution refers to the level of detail or granularity in an image or a spatial dataset. It is a measure of the...

A device used to detect and measure the quantity of exposure to nuclear or x-ray radiation, and dependent on the fact that...

A television system designed to obtain pictures of objects or scenes beneath the surface of the water. Generally, a...

Three-photon microscopy is an advanced imaging technique that belongs to the family of multi-photon microscopy methods. It...

A lens with internally adjustable elements to produce a range of focal lengths. Unlike a true zoom lens, a multifocal lens...

A periodic structure formed by intersecting or superimposed laser beams. These beams can trap atoms in low-potential...

The study of chemical changes produced by radiation.

A graphic reproduction of an object formed by a microscope or another optical system. Also an instrument used to make tiny...

An optical barcode reader, commonly known as a barcode scanner, is a device that uses optical technology to capture and...

Structural surfaces that incorporate an embedded sensor network capable of detecting flaws within the structure.

A spectroradiometer is a device used to measure the intensity of light at different wavelengths across the electromagnetic...

An optical filter so constructed that the density increases progressively from one end to the other, or angularly around a...

Micro-LED (micro-light-emitting diode) refers to a technology that involves the use of very small light-emitting diodes to...

The term perovskite refers to a specific crystal structure commonly found in various materials. Perovskite structures have a...

Exhibiting the characteristic of materials that are electrical insulators or in which an electric field can be sustained...

The fluctuation in apparent illumination that has a rate comparable to the reciprocal of the period of persistence in vision.

A nitrogen vacancy (NV) refers to a specific type of defect or impurity in a crystal lattice where a nitrogen atom replaces...

Also known as single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), this process was designed for imaging of sensitive samples and...

Silicon carbide (SiC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electric current is...

The optical element that receives light from the object and forms the first or primary image in telescopes and microscopes....

The investigation of microstructures by an instrument that generates a narrow, highly collimated beam of x-rays.

A method of scanning in which a frame transfer device produces a continuous video image of a moving object by means of a...

1. In color development, the chemical that combines with certain by-products of the development procedure to form a dye. 2....

A computer architecture used in parallel processing whereby all the processing elements are operating under their own local...

A camera that uses an image converter tube in such a way that voltage waveforms applied to internal electrodes cause the...

A parallel plate of glass in such a position that the refracted and reflected rays of incident parallel light are mutually...

Mathematically defined as the product of etendue (or throughput) and the square of the refractive index, the optical extent...

Successive layering of resistive, dielectric and conductive inks on a substrate by a type of screening process.

The reduction in longitudinal, lateral and secondary chromatic aberrations in a lens or lens system.

A nonmagnetic instrument utilizing an electrofocus and deflection tube with a photocathode for imaging purposes. The optical...

A model that predicts laser-induced damage to thin films caused by irradiation of identical, randomly distributed film...

A crystal that is devoid of any mosaic structure and that can reflect x-rays, relative to the Darwin-Ewald-Prins law.

Equipment for testing an observer's color vision. Some tests require the identification or ordering of colored samples. The...

Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe spectroscopy (APAP) is an advanced technique in ultrafast spectroscopy that allows...

A gyroscope is a mechanical device consisting of a spinning disk or wheel mounted on a spinning axis in such a way that its...

A record formed when the luminous trace or image produced by an oscilloscope is photographed.

An LED (light-emitting diode) is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. LEDs...

An optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) is a specialized instrument used in optical fiber communications to characterize...

Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) is a technique used in photon counting applications, particularly in the...

Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where two or more particles become correlated to such an extent...

A point cloud is a set of data points in a three-dimensional coordinate system, where each point represents a specific...

One of the two principal types of optical glass, the other being flint glass. Crown glass is harder than flint glass, and...

An endoscope is a medical device used for visualizing and examining the interior of hollow organs, body cavities, or...

Chip-on-board (COB) lights refer to a type of LED lighting technology where multiple LED chips are directly mounted onto a...

With respect to microscopy, also called dispersive staining, optical staining the projection of colors through areas of a...

Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level....

A flowmeter is a device used to measure the flow rate or quantity of a fluid passing through a particular point in a system....

Dichroism refers to the property of certain materials to exhibit different colors or absorbance of light depending on the...

Left- and right-hand circularly polarized beams that are produced at different velocities by passing plane-polarized light...

Gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) is a semiconductor alloy composed of gallium (Ga), arsenic (As), and phosphorus (P). It...

Fresnel reflection refers to the reflection of light at the interface between two different media with different refractive...

A technical specification for a consumer product drawn up by Sony and Philips. CD/I combines audio, video and text recorded...

A lens composed of two or more separate elements of optical glass that may or may not be cemented together. The surfaces of...

The collection and analysis of data relevant to monitoring the rate and quality of industrial production, either...

Laser annealing is a process that involves using a laser beam to heat and modify the microstructure of a material, typically...

An electron tube containing neon gas that uses the transmission of an electric current through the gas to ionize the neon...

The surface curvature designed to reduce the marginal error found in the periphery of a spectacle lens.

Phase distortion refers to a change in the phase relationships between different frequency components of a signal. In the...

Means of amplifying optical waves whereby an intense coherent pump wave is made to interact with a nonlinear optical crystal...

Reactive evaporation refers to a process in thin-film deposition where a material is deposited onto a substrate through...

Noise generated in the flow of current in the photomultiplier, produced by the intentional or controlled application of...

A television system that uses a slow rate of horizontal scanning to increase its reproduction and transmittance accuracy of...

A transducer composed of more than one high-pass, bandpass, low-pass or band-elimination filter.

The value of the distance of distinct vision, minimum focusing distance or near point, divided by the focal length of the...

In optics, a collapsible structure situated between the lens and film of a camera to allow variation of the distance between...

An EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge-coupled device) camera is a type of scientific camera specifically designed for...

A type of modulation spectroscopy that measures spectral reflectance or transmittance changes induced by applying a...

A material property that is the inverse of its resistance to the flow of electricity.

Location on the CIE chromaticity diagram which produces the color white for a given light source at a specified temperature.

Luminescence produced by the bombardment of radiant energy such as x-rays, radioactive waves or alpha particles.

A camera copying system that can reduce originals onto 35- or 16-mm film for easy storage.

The transform defining that, if a reference beam is a divergent spherical wavefront, then the reconstructed image will be...

1. A compound lens consisting of two elements. If there is an air space between the elements it is called an...

Also known as real holographic image. The indistinct, highly distorted image produced on the side of the hologram closest to...

Three proportional coefficients labeled Am, Bmn, and Bnm, that respectively characterize the rate of spontaneous emission,...

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) refers to a specific range of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum....

A concave surface that has too much negative power; i.e., its radius of curvature is too short. This condition can be...

In optics, the double refraction that is produced when stress is applied to a transparent material. Plastics, which are...

Optoacoustic, or photoacoustic, refers to a phenomenon and related techniques that involve the generation of acoustic waves...

The product of Avogadro's constant and the electrical charge of an electron; thus, the electrical charge carried by 1 gmol...

Fluorescent proteins are proteins that exhibit the property of fluorescence, which is the ability to absorb light at a...

Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) is a precision optics polishing technique used for shaping and finishing optical surfaces...

A cement used to reduce crosstalk in fiber optic bundles or plates.

Single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) is a group of super-resolution microscopy techniques that surpass the...

Also called sine wave response and contrast transfer function. The modulation transfer function is the ratio of the...

Radiographic recording and enhancement of the micoscopic details within the structure of thin specimens at a high...

In colorimetry, the phenomenon in which spectrally different radiations produce the same color sensation for a given...

Image displacement by a decentered lens, rotated on a chuck whose axis of rotation passes through the geometrical center of...

More efficient than the Foucault knife-edge test, this test examines curved mirrors by using a transmission grating with 40...

A contour mapping technique that uses electronic scanning and sampling techniques instead of a reference grating (see moire...

The distance between two focal lines in an astigmatic image produced by a lens or mirror.

A system consisting of two or more Geiger-Müller counters, connected in coincidence with their centers on an axis. The only...

Spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) is an optical microscopy technique that belongs to the category of quantitative...

Neuromorphic refers to the design and development of computing systems or devices that are inspired by the structure and...

Flow chemistry, also known as continuous-flow chemistry, is a chemical manufacturing process where reactions take place in a...

A unique glass made up of nano-structured materials to create millimeter sized monolithic glass space-variant polarization...

A quantum cascade laser (QCL) is a type of semiconductor laser that operates based on the principles of quantum mechanics....

A coating applied to a neutral density glass that is designed to reduce the amount of light evenly across the transmitted...

An instrument used for video or computer data storage in which a laser optical head is used to write digital information...

Photoimmunotherapy (PIT) is a medical treatment approach that combines elements of phototherapy and immunotherapy to target...

The field of view seen through some types of coincidence rangefinders. It is formed by the juxtaposition of opposite halves...

Referring to compound semiconductor materials combining one element that has three valence electrons with one or more that...

The focal length of a lens is the distance between the lens's optical center (or principal point) and the image sensor or...

A light source that produces an equal-energy spectrum.

A device that accumulates and stores electrical energy to introduce capacitance into a circuit. Basically, it is composed of...

A mirror mount is a mechanical device used to secure and precisely position mirrors in optical systems. Mirrors are...

A method of producing disks for erasable optical data storage. Information is recorded by a laser beam that generates pits...

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

A family of lenses commonly used in scan systems for reading or printing documents. The lens must be designed such that the...

An aerial photograph produced when the optical axis of the camera is perpendicular to the surface below.

All formulas that present the index of refraction as a function of a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. Also called...

Plasmonics is a field of science and technology that focuses on the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and free...

Fluorescence produced as a result of the intrinsic property of the material itself or the doping of the material with trace...

An imaging system that uses a mosaic of tiny light-sensitive semiconductors (phototransistors) to produce individual outputs...

A method of lasing in which free electrons in a laser-produced plasma collide with neonlike ions to excite electrons to...

A microscope that has an annular stop in the lower focal plane of the condenser, and a quarter-wave retarding and absorbing...

An antireflection coating (AR coating) is a thin film or coating applied to optical surfaces, such as lenses or windows, to...

In optics, the process of combining two lenses having equal and opposite powers to produce a result having no power.

The action of a biological system responding to a single or multiple coherent particles of light produced from a laser...

A prism with curved faces that collimates, reflects and refracts incident light. Often used in the production of...

The field of view (FOV) refers to the extent of the observable world or the visible area that can be seen at any given...

With relation to the equivalent beam candlepower of a searchlight, the candlepower of a bare source that would produce the...

An instrument similar to the spectroheliograph, but having a scanning method that is performed by a pair of rapidly...

The study of crystal growth from the molten stage utilizing a holographic system wherein interferometric techniques record...

A method of studying the chemical and physical properties of atoms and molecules (typically living tissue and chemical...

1. A polariscope consisting of a Savart plate and a tourmaline plate analyzer, and used to produce parallel color fringes by...

1. The term used to describe any of the many instruments used to remotely record physical dimensions, such as strain,...

An accelerometer is a sensor or transducer that measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, or in simpler terms,...

Biometrics refers to the automated recognition of individuals based on their physiological or behavioral characteristics....

A single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is a specialized type of photodetector designed to detect extremely weak optical...

An optical channel monitor (OCM) is a device used in optical communication systems to monitor and analyze the performance of...

A photomicrographic recording technique that utilizes dark-field illumination to render an image of an object having a...

A Dammann grating is a type of diffractive optical element (DOE) used to create an array of equally spaced,...

A ground-based navigation beacon that emits pulsed signals which are picked up by aircraft making an instrument (blind)...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful analytical technique that enhances the Raman scattering signal of...

Wide-field, low-magnification device that consists of two compound microscopes focused on a single object, producing an...

An optical compensator similar to the Babinet compensator, but which produces a phase-change consistent throughout its...

Describing a prism, or the effects produced by prisms.

A photometer screen that contains a diaphragm of paper or parchment with a translucent central spot of oil or paraffin.

A color whose hue is not produced by a single wavelength in the visible spectrum, but is instead produced by mixing the...

Standard maintained by the International Commission on Radiological Units as a unit of radioactivity defined as the quantity...

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is a nondestructive analytical technique used to investigate the optical properties...

A type of compound microscope that uses three visible wavelengths to translate details produced by invisible radiation.

A structured light device using a rapidly rotating laser to project a beam of light that appears to the human eye as a...

Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor...

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an analytical technique that combines the principles of Raman spectroscopy...

White, tetragonal crystals used in the production of luminous coatings.

A power intensity pattern produced by the mutual interference of partially coherent beams that are subject to minute...

Machine vision, also known as computer vision or computer sight, refers to the technology that enables machines, typically...

The layer of material in a laser diode from which the optical radiation is emitted; light producing region

In a laser diode, the photocurrent produced by a photodiode that detects the emission from the rear facet of the...

A long-pass filter is an optical filter that allows longer wavelengths of light to pass through while blocking or...

The computer module whose circuitry interprets instructions and guides the actions of the peripherals. Also known as the...

The material that produces stimulated emission from within a laser oscillator. Laser gain media may vary from...

An image intensifier that consists of an evacuated tube with a large input phosphor screen at one end. The phosphor screen...

An optical element located at an image plane, containing a pattern that assists in pointing an instrument or measuring...

Dewetting is a phenomenon in materials science and physics where a thin film or coating spontaneously undergoes a process of...

The formation of microimages for microreduction. The technique is used, for example, in the production of precision reticles...

Machine vision lighting refers to the use of specific lighting techniques and equipment in the field of machine vision,...

An electro-optic modulator (EOM) is a device used to modulate the amplitude, phase, or polarization of light waves using an...

A positioning drive that rotates a fraction of a 360° turn when the motor coils are activated, resulting in linear or...

Photonic crystals are artificial structures or materials designed to manipulate and control the flow of light in a manner...

A filter that passes a series of wavelength regions that are at equal distances from one another, such that its output...

A crystal diode whose rectifying activity is determined by the touching of the crystal to a finely pointed wire surrounded...

A convex lens that brings an incident bundle of rays to a focus to produce intense heat at the focus.

A group of lenses, or any combination of lenses, mirrors and prisms, so constructed as to refract or reflect light to...

Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to measure and analyze the optical...

A lens or lens system that produces an enlarged virtual image of an object placed near its front focal point.

An event-based image sensor, also known as a dynamic vision sensor (DVS), is a type of digital imaging device designed to...

A solar cell that is lightweight and flexible because of its construction by vacuum deposition of a semiconductor material...

A wireless stereo imaging device used in conjunction with a monitor to produce a virtual interactive environment. Liquid...

Harmonic generation refers to a nonlinear optical process in which incoming photons interact with a material and produce new...

A lens, usually having one or more cylindrical surfaces, used to produce distorted images and later to restore them to true...

Ferroelectric materials are a type of dielectric materials that exhibit spontaneous electric polarization, meaning they...

STED microscopy, or stimulated emission depletion microscopy, is a superresolution imaging technique in fluorescence...

A technique whereby two laser beams, one at an excitation wavelength and the second at a wavelength that produces Stokes...

A method of image dissection whereby a lens transfers images onto a lenticular plate that in turn illustrates the images as...

A fiber optic end plate constructed by drawing a bundle of parallel fibers embedded in glass and cutting it into thin...

A weight reducing method whereby material from the rear of a reflector is removed leaving a pattern of ribs normal to the...

Output noise in a laser beam resulting from acoustic disturbances of mirror separation or orientation. Such disturbances may...

Computation of tristimulus values by integrating or summing, over the visible wavelength region, the product of the relative...

Wide-field fluorescence microscopy uses either naturally occurring structures or staining with fluorescent tags that are...

A semiconductor laser in which the naturally occurring broad linewidth has been narrowed by incorporating the laser diode...

A fusion system conductor capable of carrying current in opposite directions in alternating time phases.

A photometer that uses a wedge, marked to show its reduction of flux density, to make two light sources equal in intensity...

Radiation emitted by electrons when they travel in circular orbits at speeds close to that of light. Synchrotron radiation...

A method of reducing dark current in charge-coupled devices by holding all the clocks at negative voltage during the...

The elimination of magnetic fields from within a material as that material makes the transition from the normal to...

The application of a cine camera in recording the images on a fluorescent screen. When x-rays are used to produce the screen...

In a crystal, its subdivision into polyhedral blocks of macroscopic sizes, with discontinuities contained in the lattice...

For a pulsed laser, the product of the energy per pulse (joule) and the pulse frequency (hertz); expressed in watts.

Rolling shutter artifacts are distortions or visual anomalies that can occur in images or videos captured by cameras with...

An absorbing coating medium between fibers, used in some fused fiber optic plates to absorb unwanted light. Such coatings...

Quantum efficiency (QE) is a measure of the effectiveness with which a device or system, typically in the context of...

Opsins are a group of light-sensitive proteins found primarily in the retinas of vertebrate and invertebrate eyes, as well...

Luminescence is the emission of light that occurs without the involved substance undergoing a significant increase in...

A type of geometrical distortion that brings about a trapezoidal display of a nominally rectangular picture. Usually...

A crystal formed by covalent bonds that are generally highly directional by nature. The electric characteristics of these...

A phase screen, in the context of optics and wave optics, refers to a surface or medium that introduces a phase delay to an...

An instrument that serves to produce an enlarged electron image on a fluorescent screen by focusing an infrared image of a...

A variation of tomography in which several photographs of a patient are taken at different angles, and back-projection of...

Measures by heterodyning interferometry the local slope of a vibrating sample. The method allows the reconstruction of a...

Spectrometric analysis of the distinct and characteristic spectra of atoms of elements. The atoms are energized to emit...

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a type of additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that uses a high-power...

A high-quality focuser that uses rollers rather than gears and offers smooth, precise motion while reducing or eliminating...

Frame rate refers to the frequency at which consecutive images, or frames, are displayed in a video sequence. It is...

Extremely small organic and inorganic systems of molecules within a substance. In general, systems are colloidal size in...

The term gradient-index profile refers to a specific type of refractive index distribution within an optical material. In...

Gamma ray radiation released when matter and antimatter, such as electron and positron, unite and eliminate each other,...

Turbidity is a measure of the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by the presence of suspended particles. These...

A wedge in a rangefinder or heightfinder used to displace the image produced by one telescope so that it coincides with that...

Phenomenon caused by an ultrashort and ultra-intense light pulse propagating in a Kerr medium, such as air or water. When...

A laser having a lasing material that is a fluorescing organic dye. Depending on the dye used, it can produce emission in...

A spatial light modulator consisting of a metallized polymer film stretched over an array of metal-oxide semiconductor...

Convex is an adjective used to describe a surface or shape that curves outward, bulges, or has a rounded and outwardly...

Interaction of a magnetic field with a photoconductive substance exposed to light to create a potential difference.

A PN-PN device with incident light taking the place of gate current; three of the four semiconductor regions are available...

The power, expressed in prism diopters, that is the linear displacement, in centimeters, produced by the prism one meter...

A high-reflectance coating consisting of alternating layers of quarter-wave film of a higher refractive index and lower...

Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is an international standard for medical imaging created by both the...

A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording,...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique used in medical and scientific fields to capture...

A photoconductive cell having greatest sensitivity in the infrared region. The photosensitive material of the cell is lead...

To reduce the size of a lens aperture, which increases the depth of field.

A technique of using dyes during endoscopy to improve tissue differentiation. Dyes such as methylene blue, Toluidine blue...

Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique used in laser physics to amplify ultrashort laser pulses to high energies...

Topological photonics is a branch of physics and optics that explores the application of topological concepts to the...

The photoemission that would occur if a crystal were pure and its structure perfect.

A semiconductor material that is used as an infrared detector for light up to 5 µm in wavelength.

A method of designing lasers whereby the laser rod is cut into elliptical discs and cooled by running water over the disc...

1. The decrease of the absorption (or gain) coefficient of a medium near some transition frequency when the power of the...

Photolithography is a key process in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, and...

An optical device, such as a Nicol prism, capable of producing plane-polarized light, and used for detecting the effect of...

Transformation of an image, such as a change in position or scale, that does not alter the linearity of the original image.

A two-electrode device with an anode and a cathode that passes current in only one direction. It may be designed as an...

Metal used in components of the crystalline semiconductor alloys indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), indium gallium arsenide...

Computer vision enables computers to interpret and make decisions based on visual data, such as images and videos. It...

Laser optics refers to a broad category of optical components and systems designed for manipulating and controlling laser...

A light source that does not fluctuate despite temperature changes.

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light...

Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and...

Ion-beam sputtering (IBS) is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique used for depositing thin films onto substrates. It...

In optics, the term image jump refers to a displacement or shift in the apparent position of an image when a change occurs...

Film designed especially for the needs and conditions encountered in aerial photography. It is produced in a variety of...

A contour mapping technique that involves projection of a grating onto an object to produce a shadow grating that is...

The production of holograms initially from either conventional photographs or incoherent optical equipment.

A type of high-speed photographic shutter that uses Faraday rotation to produce exposure times as fast as 1 microsecond. It...

A mount that uses a floating suspension and a motor-driven gyroscope to keep a motion picture or still camera at a set angle...

One of a number of nuclides characterized by an identity between their mass numbers, but each having a different atomic...

A far-field pattern holographically reproduced image that is categorically considered with three-dimensional lensless...

A prism system designed to produce a very high dispersion of light.

A transparent crystalline substance that displays the same optical properties (i.e. refractive index) in all directions such...

An infrared light source is a device that emits light in the infrared spectrum, which lies beyond the visible spectrum of...

A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light....

One or more spots placed in the field of view of an optical system to provide a means of reference.

An image-forming system that uses mirrors rather than lenses. Such objectives are frequently used for astronomical...

Fused quartz and silica are closely related materials, both composed primarily of silicon dioxide (SiO2), but they are...

A technique for detecting and measuring atmospheric pollution, in which an oscillating mirror directs half the incoming...

In optical character recognition, the mechanical or electronic transducer used to detect the level of illumination present...

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a manufacturing process that involves creating three-dimensional...

A laser that relies on chemical activity instead of electrical energy to produce the pumping action necessary to form pulses...

A method of creating real three-dimensional models by using lasers driven by CAD software. In contrast to the normal...

The method by which photographic film is scanned by an electron beam. One technique uses the uniform light of a television...

In chemistry, a device in which a chemical reaction takes place. In electronics, a device that introduces reactance into a...

Glass of special composition that is melted, formed into desired shapes, and subjected to a high-temperature treatment in...

Digital signal processing (DSP) refers to the manipulation and analysis of signals, which are representations of physical...

A beam instability, induced by index of refraction inhomogeneities and component damage of dirt and dust particles, that...

A femtosecond laser is a type of laser that emits ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of femtoseconds,...

A microbubble resonator is a device used in photonics and optical physics for the precise manipulation of light waves. It...

Fluorescence is a type of luminescence, which is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other...

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a method for detecting antigens or haptens in cells of a tissue section by using labeled...

Lens testing equipment refers to a range of specialized tools and instruments used to evaluate the optical performance,...

A light absorbing material applied to ground optical surfaces during the process of making that surface non reflective. Such...

A photoconductive cell that uses thallium oxysulfide as the light-sensitive medium.

A photodetector composed of a photoconductive material that, when exposed to radiation, conducts without the aid of added...

A series of capacitors and inductors connected to the flashlamp in a pumped Nd:YAG laser system in order to regulate the...

A family of semiconductor switching devices of which the silicon-controlled rectifier and the triac are most commonly used....

Pushbroom scanning is a technique used in remote sensing and imaging systems, particularly in satellite and aerial sensors,...

The finite amount of electrical charge generated in response to incident radiation and transferred from one storage element...

Material used to integrate photoconductors into electro-optical systems. It should provide low resistance to the flow of...

Nondestructive measurement of the delta and alpha of clad optical fibers that involves interferometry with the fiber...

A special-purpose camera used by ophthalmologists to photograph the retina of the eye. The optical system operates through...

A reagent is a substance or compound that is used in a chemical reaction to bring about a specific transformation or to...

A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the...

The alteration and reduction of color with the addition of white light. The perceived color shift that occurs as the...

Integrated photonics is a field of study and technology that involves the integration of optical components, such as lasers,...

The process of subjecting glass to temperature cycling to produce physico-chemical reactions that alter its properties....

Gain-switching is a technique used in lasers to generate short pulses of light by modulating the gain of the laser medium....

A small xenon-filled tube with metal electrodes fused into the ends. The gas flashes brilliantly when a condenser is...

Certain color centers in the alkali halides have been optically pumped to produce efficient tunable pulsed and...

Raman spectroscopy is a technique used in analytical chemistry and physics to study vibrational, rotational, and other...

Fluorescence lifetime refers to the average time it takes for a fluorophore, a molecule that absorbs light at one wavelength...

A multiple-beam interferometer, usually consisting of two flat plates, with high reflective ability. The plates are set...

Enhanced picture archiving and communication system (PACS) display (ePAD) is a software tool used in medical imaging to...

Cold atoms refer to atoms that have been cooled to extremely low temperatures, typically in the microkelvin (µK) to...

The term "metaverse" refers to a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical...

Camera Link HS (high speed) is a standard developed for high-speed digital data transmission in machine vision and...

A Fresnel lens is a type of optical lens that consists of a series of concentric grooves or steps carved into a flat, thin...

A device used to produce numerical integrations for colorimetry.

An instrument designed to place nongraphic information, usually generated by a computer, onto photographic film. The...

A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance, which is a phenomenon that occurs when an external force or...

A frequency comb is a precise and regular series of equally spaced spectral lines, or frequencies, that are generated with...

A type of matched filter that responds only to the phase of incoming light; the output has a much greater intensity than...

A device for detecting visual and infrared radiation using a photoconductor as the principle sensing element.

Microscopy technique to convert the phase structure of the wave transmitted or reflected by the specimen into a...

A polariton is a quasiparticle resulting from the strong coupling between photons (light particles) and certain types of...

The emission of a photon by the return of an excited carrier from the conduction band to the valence band of a semiconductor...

A method of analysis in which a pulsed laser beam is used to heat a particle, producing a plasma, or laser spark. As the...

The inhibition or elimination of one process by another process. The stimulated emission of a laser oscillator can be...

An optical recording technique that uses light source(s), a beamsplitting cube, light detector(s) and an optical fiber...

A method used to produce precision spherical and aspheric molded glass lenses without grinding or polishing.

A reflecting surface that scatters radiation that is incident on it, thus producing diffuse reflection.

A set of algorithms used to study the structural and spatial characteristics of objects in a digitized image for...

A medical imaging method in which gamma camera heads rotate about the patient to detect radionuclides, enabling physicians...

A vacuum pump in which pressure is reduced by condensing gases on surfaces cryogenically cooled to about 20 K (liquid...

Off-axis paraboloid and ellipsoid mirrors are specialized optical components used in various optical systems, particularly...

A MEMS fiber optic switch is a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device designed to selectively route optical signals...

The interferometric analysis of a complex object by utilizing the three-dimensional hologram. By causing a laser beam to...

The control of an instrument or electrical circuit by the current produced by varying radiation incident to a photoelectric...

A cathode-ray tube that either splits an electron beam from one source or uses beams from two sources to produce two beams,...

A measure of the time-integrated amount of flux. It has units of lumen-seconds and might be used to describe such things as...

The law stating that when light strikes a surface at such an angle that the reflected and refracted rays are perpendicular...

1. The characteristic of how light propagates through a waveguide that can be designated by a radiation pattern in a plane...

The area of optics in which the propagation of light is described by geometrical lines (or rays) governed by Fermat's...

A confocal resonator, also known as a confocal cavity or confocal laser resonator, is a type of optical resonator...

Laser marking is a process in which a laser beam is used to mark or engrave a surface by altering its properties or...

The use of photoetching techniques to produce small tools, parts and dies from sheet metal.

1. In relation to cathode-ray tube displays, errors in the signal's amplitude, phase or both that result in small, rapid...

A quadrivalent semiconductor material, with electrons as the majority charge carriers, that is formed by doping with donor...

Label-free refers to a technique or method that does not require the use of additional labels, tags, or markers to detect or...

The use of a variable transmission filter at the aperture stop of a lens to modify its diffraction pattern. Reduced...

A lens system that is capable of producing a 360° image, or one that is very close to that. In recording, the image may...

The use of the photographic process to produce precision copies of an original image that are many times smaller in size....

One of the types of change in the energy levels of molecules or atoms in a laser that can result in lasing action. Because...

Also called DLIP, a high-speed, high-resolution processing technique that uses high-power, pulsed laser systems to directly...

A molded lens is an optical lens manufactured using a molding process, typically involving the shaping of a material, such...

The system of color classification and description produced by Wilhelm Ostwald.

An SI prefix meaning one billionth (10-9). Nano can also be used to indicate the study of atoms, molecules and other...

The mechanical structure that holds a number of individual lens elements.

Fluorescence microscopy is a specialized optical imaging technique used in biology, chemistry, and materials science to...

A semiconductor device with the property of conducting current more easily in one direction than the other. It has two...

Any noise or current fluctuation that prevents precise measurement of the signal current. Both dark current and signal...

The Foucault test is performed by moving a knife edge laterally into the image of a small point source. The eye, or a...

An electronic device consisting of a semiconductor material, generally germanium or silicon, and used for rectification,...

A discharge lamp filled with deuterium to produce high-intensity ultraviolet radiation for use in spectroscopic analysis.

A technique for producing micron-size structures on surfaces by using short-wavelength light or electron beams.

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that involves the use of artificial neural networks to model and solve complex...

In a medium of constant refractive index, the product of the geometrical distance and the refractive index.

A shower of cosmic rays whereby a high-energy electron produces one or more photons that convert into electron pairs, the...

The study of the diffraction of beams of a wave by matter to ascertain the structure of the matter.

A semiconductor material used in photodetectors, sensitive in the infrared up to 5 µm.

Superresolution refers to the enhancement or improvement of the spatial resolution beyond the conventional limits imposed by...

An optical gate typically refers to a device or system that controls the transmission of light, allowing it to pass through...

In image processing, the study of structure or form of objects in an image.

A microring resonator is a compact optical device that utilizes the resonant behavior of light within a small ring-shaped...

1. A contour map of a photographic deposit consisting of lines and curves that join points of equal density. 2. The...

A semiconductor diode that exhibits change in capacitance with a change in applied voltage; used as a voltage-variable...

A microspectroscope equipped with a sensing and recording device, such as a camera, to measure the spectrum formed by...

The transport of molecules in a cell which requires the use of a cell's internal energy. The energy used in the cell may be...

An optical storage product that can be used for playback only.

Ultrasonic refers to sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing, typically above...

The alteration of electric conductivity produced by the absorption of varying amounts of radiation composed of photons.

An avalanche photodiode in which the light-absorbing area is a low-bandgap material and the PN junction is placed in an area...

An absorption peak refers to a sharp increase or spike in the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at a particular...

A modified form of an image-retaining panel that can be used in subdued daylight. This is achieved by adding a layer of zinc...

A photovoltaic cell designed so that light travels through the front electrode and a semiconductor before it comes to the...

Plasma-enriched deposition or planar magnetic sputtering that offers increased deposition rates in optical thin-film...

In image acquisition (and sampling theory), the postulate that the pickup sampling frequency must be a minimum of twice as...

A method of synthesis for crystals such as KTP. The process involves the use of a high-temperature solution called flux to...

Plasmon ion-assisted deposition (PIAD) is a technique used in thin-film deposition processes, particularly in the production...

An operate mode in which the sensor is programmed to perform a task such as generating output when the light level falls...

A spatial light modulator (SLM) is an optical device that modulates or manipulates the amplitude, phase, or polarization of...

An electric cell having two electrodes of unlike metals immersed in a solution that chemically affects one or both of them,...

A short focal length (less than five inches) positive lens used to produce a magnified image of the object being viewed....

A polarizing prism formed from calcite that is like the Nicol prism but has the two parts divided by a thin air-film and cut...

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that belongs to the powder bed...

A method of spectral analysis in which some property of the sample is varied and the corresponding change is measured. The...

A probe card is a testing device used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry to evaluate and test the electrical...

Periodic interruptions of a light beam incident on an absorbing medium that produce heat, expansion and acoustic wave...

An alteration in magnification from the center of the field to any point in the field, measured in a radial direction from...

A specific form of phase shifting interferometry - commonly referred to as multiple wavelength phase shifting interferometry...

A spectrophotometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the intensity of light at various wavelengths in the...

In laser damage testing, the exposure of many sites of a sample to different intensities of laser irradiation to discover...

1. A method of photographing distant objects with a lens of long focal length. 2. The reproduction of photographs over a...

A device used to count objects that pass a given point by allowing each object to obstruct a beam of light falling on a...

In a camera or cathode-ray tube, distortion that is designated by a lateral skewing of the reproduced image.

The time domain is a concept used in signal processing and analysis to describe signals in terms of their behavior over...

The use of retroreflective projection technology (RPT) to project a background image onto a masked object, such as a vehicle...

An imaging device whose technology contributes three specific advantages: ability to study large solid specimens that...

Circular dichroism (CD) is a spectroscopic technique used to study the structural characteristics of chiral (asymmetric)...

An acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Predecessor to the laser, the maser or...

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a method of secure communication that utilizes principles from quantum mechanics to...

In optics, the Pockels effect refers to the phenomenon where the refractive index of a material changes in response to an...

A device used to accelerate the electrons in a free-electron laser by supplying electrical energy to the electron beam...

A dark band that may appear in the field of crossed Nicol prisms with a powerful source such as the sun because the light is...

A fiber optic communications system that works on the principles of homodyning or heterodyning. The transmitting laser...

A process used in document copying and printing that involves the visible rendering of an invisible electrostatic image on a...

A 2D profile sensor is a type of sensor used in various industrial and technological applications to measure and capture...

The direct cladding used for fused silica cores to create large numerical aperture fibers and used as overcoats to...

A distributed feedback laser (DFB laser) is a type of semiconductor laser diode designed to emit coherent, narrow-bandwidth...

The effect produced by electrical charges or fields alone, without interaction with magnetic influence.

A junction between semiconductors that differ in their doping level conductivities but not in their atomic or alloy...

Meta-optics, also known as metasurface optics or flat optics, is a branch of optics that involves the design, fabrication,...

Optical design software refers to specialized computer programs used by optical engineers, physicists, and designers to...

The transition cross section constant coefficient which defines the transition probability of absorption from ground to a...

Spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) is a technique that extends traditional Raman spectroscopy by incorporating...

An imaging process in which the single opening of a simple pinhole camera is replaced with many openings called,...

A common technique in microscopy, oblique illumination is one in which the object is illuminated by a light source that is...

Fluence is a term used in various scientific and technical disciplines to describe the amount of something per unit area....

Q-switched operation, or q-switching, is a technique used in lasers to produce short and intense pulses of light. The term...

Infrared optics refer to optical components and systems designed to manipulate and control infrared (IR) light, which lies...

Fluorescence produced by a material that has been treated with a dilute solution of fluorescing material.

A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite characterized by its standardized size and modular design. CubeSats are...

Machinery used to grind and finish a component, such as a lens or prism, to a desired precision. Usually such machines carry...

The pulse-to-pulse fluctuations in power distribution among modes of a Fabry-Perot laser, which can result in...

An aplanatic surface is an optical surface that is specifically designed or shaped to minimize spherical aberration and...

A loose term for a single polishing machine. In a lens factory it is the minimum unit of production.

A microcomb, short for microresonator frequency comb, is a novel photonic device that generates a precise series of evenly...

Holographic tomography is an advanced imaging technique that combines holography and tomography to provide three-dimensional...

A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode is a type of photodetector that consists of metal electrodes on a semiconductor...

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It...

A semiconductor made up of two or more elements, in contrast to those composed of a single element such as germanium or...

A device used for measuring the height of clouds from a position on the ground. Measurement technique uses a vertically...

A system that uses both reflection and refraction to achieve its focal power. While the relative powers of the lenses and...

In the context of optics and lasers, a transverse mode refers to a specific spatial pattern of the electric field within the...

Also known as f number, lens speed is commonly represented as the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the lens....

An atomic force microscope (AFM) is a high-resolution imaging and measurement instrument used in nanotechnology, materials...

A graphic representation of a distribution function such as frequency by means of rectangles whose widths represent the...

The image of the sun produced by a spectroheliograph.

Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) is a display technology that combines liquid crystal materials with silicon-based...

An Er:YAG laser is a type of solid-state laser that uses a crystal made of erbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet...

The coherent wave used to play back a recorded hologram. It is identical to the reference wave used in the generation of the...

Mie scattering, named after the German physicist Gustav Mie, refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (such as...

A metal, alloy or compound that loses its electrical resistance at temperatures below a certain transition temperature...

Lidar, short for light detection and ranging, is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and...

The clarity of an optically reproduced image. Definition is produced by the combination of resolution and acutance.

A microlens array is a grid-like structure composed of numerous small lenses, typically arranged in a regular pattern. Each...

A television system in which the images produced appear three-dimensional.

A cable assembly containing both optical fibers and copper electrical conductors in the same jacket.

A cloud chamber designed to maintain the gas within it at a high pressure as a means of reducing the range of the...

The technique that uses light to detect and analyze the antibodies produced by a specimen stained with an organic dye.

A hologram in which the image of an object, or the object itself, is located near the hologram recording plane, for optimum...

The electron beam tube of a television camera that converts an optical image into a pattern of electrostatic charges and...

Functional materials refer to materials that possess specific properties or functionalities that make them suitable for...

With respect to a unit cell in a crystal structure, the property defining an atom located at the center of each face.

A color center, in the context of materials science and condensed matter physics, refers to a specific type of...

A type of optical fiber in which a silica core is surrounded by a hard polymer or similar material much stronger than the...

Integration time, in the context of optics, imaging systems, and sensor technology, refers to the duration over which a...

A chemical detection technique used to measure molecules that have a magnetic dipole moment. The analysis is directed to...

Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are substances or compounds used to enhance the thermal conductivity between two surfaces...

An x-ray or radium photograph illustrating the nonuniform density of the structure that the rays penetrate.

A device used in thin-film deposition; the material to be evaporated is placed in a crucible that is heated inductively by...

Optical glasses containing the oxides of rare earths such as lanthanum to impart a very high refractive index combined with...

That property of a substance that determines that there will be a decrease in conductivity when exposed to light radiation.

Reflectance spectroscopy is a technique used to analyze the reflective properties of materials across various wavelengths of...

In an optical fiber or waveguide communications system, an optoelectronic device or module that receives an optical signal,...

Ratiometry is a technique used in various scientific fields, particularly in analytical chemistry and biochemistry, to...

Cathode radiant sensitivity refers to the ability of a photocathode to convert incident radiant energy, typically in the...

The analysis of structural and molecular dynamics caused by low temperature.

A microscope that uses a flying spot scanner, directed through the eyepiece, as a light source to determine the features of...

A feature of some imaging devices, such as digital cameras, that allows them to compensate for different lighting conditions...

Astronomical detector consisting of a photocathode isolated from the target by a coin value from which electrons are focused...

A technique developed to measure the molecular weight of macromolecules by analyzing the spontaneous fluctuations that occur...

A projector used to project transparencies. A horizontal 8 x 10-in. stage for writing or laying down preformed...

The term "Rydberg atom" refers to an atom in a highly excited state where one or more of its electrons are in a Rydberg...

A photomask, also known simply as a mask or reticle, is a key component in the photolithography process used in...

Short wavelength infrared (SWIR) refers to the portion of the infrared spectrum that encompasses wavelengths roughly between...

A linear positioning stage, also known as a linear stage or translation stage, is a precision mechanical device used to...

In optics, "mode beating" refers to an interference phenomenon that can occur in laser systems with multiple longitudinal...

An instrument that uses a beam of light to scan a color transparency, and three differently filtered photosensors to record...

A phenomenon that occurs in WDM and DWDM systems when three closely spaced signal wavelengths near the zero-dispersion...

Not spherical; an optical element having one or more surfaces that are not spherical. The spherical surface of a lens may be...

A device used to control or block a light beam by means of the Kerr electro-optical effect, and other electro-optic devices...

1. In a plane Cartesian coordinate system, the horizontal axis, or axis in the left to right direction. 2. In a quartz...

In computer graphics, a character generator that produces alphabetical and numerical characters with some punctuation and...

A dichroic mirror, also known as a dichroic beamsplitter or interference filter beamsplitter, is an optical device that...

The process of binding or attaching larger metal sheets by laser welding. The effect is generated by higher power densities...

A high-resolution imaging instrument that can detect and measure the positions of individual atoms on the surface of a...

The removal of the zero-order component of the Fourier spectrum distribution of an object with a small, opaque absorber or...

The electric conductance of a conductor in which a current of 1 ampere is produced by an electric potential difference of 1...

Scalar diffraction theory is a simplified approach used to describe the propagation of electromagnetic waves, particularly...

A reflecting prism that is rhomboidal in shape. It has two parallel transmitting faces, and two parallel reflecting faces;...

Any systemic process that ultimately reassembles all the system's components into their initial alignment, or an arrangement...

The distortion of an object's true image as the result of abnormal atmospheric disturbances along the path traveled by the...

A fiber optic spectrometer is a device used for measuring the spectral content of light. It utilizes optical fibers to...

An instrument for determining the sensitivity of a photographic film to light. The film is given either a stepped exposure...

The use of photographs taken from the air to construct graphic maps and charts of ground surfaces.

The use of photographic emulsions to detect and determine the amounts of ionizing radiation, such as x-rays and gamma rays,...

An infrared light-emitting diode (IR LED) is a semiconductor device that emits infrared light when an electric current...

Spectroscopy is a technique used in the study of interactions between matter and electromagnetic radiation. It involves...

Refers to transistors in which the working current flows through two types of semiconductor material: N- and P-type. In...

Pertaining to materials having the property of reflecting a part and transmitting a part of the incident radiation.

Gallium nitride-based light-emitting diodes (GaN-based LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electric...

Lithography is a key process used in microfabrication and semiconductor manufacturing to create intricate patterns on the...

Basically, a hydrogen atom with two alterations, positronium is the lightest atom in the universe and has an extremely light...

A process and method by which manipulation and orientation of a given number of directed laser beams decreases the motion of...

The inverse peak voltage that produces ionization in a gas tube.

The universal constant h that has a value of 6.6260693 x 10-34 Js. A quantum of energy is equal to the product of the...

Rockwell hardness (Rc) refers to a method for measuring the hardness of a material, primarily metals, using an indentation...

Any crystalline material whose length is much less than its measured diameter.

A device for the internal inspection of hard-to-get-at mechanical parts, such as rifle barrels, sewer pipes, oil wells, or...

In chemistry, a halide refers to a chemical compound containing one or more halogen atoms bonded to another element. The...

Abbreviated SoC. A single chip containing all the electronic circuits required for a complete, working product. SoCs are...

A portable instrument that uses a four-sided reflecting prism or set of mirrors to create a duplicate image of an object on...

A device used to delay transmission of a signal for functions such as memory loops, sequential processing or built-in...

An InGaAs photodiode refers to a photodetector device that is constructed using a semiconductor material composed of a...

An optical system having two sets of components separated by an air space, while successive lenses in each set are cemented...

High-modulus elastic fibers that exhibit the following differences from conventional elastic fibers: Increasing temperature...

A factor, F, indicating the increase in shot noise in an avalanche photodiode as compared with the ideal multiplier, which...

A type of exposure meter that artificially reduces the light admitted in a sequence of known fractions until a value is...

Birefringence of materials that is induced or altered by stress fields.

That process by which radiation spontaneously emitted by a volume of optical materials is resonantly reabsorbed within the...

The process of reducing the size of an image by removing a certain proportion of the samples produced from the original...

Excimer laser coronary angioplasty (ELCA) refers to a medical procedure used in the treatment of coronary artery disease....

A tough, durable, heat- and cold-resistant optical quality plastic used in injection-molded items such as streetlight...

A photovoltaic cell, commonly known as a solar cell, is a semiconductor device that directly converts light energy into...

Primarily the measurement of photographic sensitivity of certain materials such as photographic film. It refers to the...

A measure of an optical system's ability to produce an image which separates two points or parallel lines on the object. See...

A device that changes the frequency of light by inducing the Raman effect on a beam passing through it.

The mean square difference in a spatial parameter at points spaced a given distance.

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light...

Electromagnetic energy that is capable of producing photochemical activity.

A screen with a reflected or transmitted light beam that is confined to a much smaller bundle than was received by the...

A structural method of optical character recognition, used where the input media are variable, as in hand-written or...

A defect in an optical system that prevents rays from reaching their intended destination; it can be caused by an undersized...

A fiber optic imaging bundle is a specialized optical device composed of multiple optical fibers bundled together. Each...

Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) is a superresolution microscopy technique that enables imaging of...

An impurity in a material that is capable of inducing electrical conduction in that material by transferring an electron to...

A spectral signature, in the context of remote sensing and spectroscopy, refers to the unique pattern or characteristic...

Any form of lens, optical system (camera, telescope, microscope, etc.), or opto-electronics utilized for the purpose of...

An etalon is an optical device that consists of two parallel reflecting surfaces separated by a precise and known distance....

An interference filter in which a very thin metal foil with a periodic array of square holes (inductive mesh) or a thin...

Histochemical staining is a laboratory technique used in biology and medicine to visualize specific chemical components...

A form of high-power microscope objective where the space between the object and the first element is filled with an oil...

A lock-in amplifier is a specialized electronic instrument used to extract and measure small signals embedded in noise or...

A semiconductor is a type of material that has electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. In...

The holographic recording of a microscopic specimen whereby magnification is achieved by alteration in a wavelength or...

A type of high-speed cine camera that uses different image paths and a Kerr cell to produce a series of successive images at...

A fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) is a type of gyroscope that uses the interference of light waves to detect changes in...

Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity, based on the notion that electrons with opposite momentum and spin...

A high-speed shutter, similar to a Kerr cell, that uses the birefringence produced in a liquid during the passage of an...

The optical diffraction spectra formed, or the method that produces them, when a light beam is transmitted through a...

A device used in measuring attenuation in optical fiber. The loss caused by the bends in a short reference length of fiber...

In physics, nuclear fusion refers to the process in which two atomic nuclei come together to form a heavier nucleus,...

Hyperchromic shift refers to an increase in the absorption of light, leading to a higher absorbance, often observed in...

The term used in reference to vacuum systems using oil and diffusion pumps, describes the migration of pump fluids and their...

An edge-emitting light-emitting diode is a type of LED structure where light emission occurs primarily along the edge of the...

Quantum-enhanced metrology refers to the use of quantum mechanics principles and techniques to enhance the precision and...

An objective that uses the mineral fluorite in its construction to reduce the secondary spectrum. It is usually intermediate...

Measurement of the time elapsed during the current output change from 10 to 90 percent in a photoconductor.

The production of an image on a magnetic film that is exposed to infrared radiation and heated to a point above Curie...

A camera system capable of producing microfilm copies of computerized data presented on a screen.

A film of material that exhibits varying conductivity based upon its absorption of varying amounts of photon radiation.

A biomarker, short for biological marker, refers to a measurable and quantifiable indicator of a biological condition,...

Optical switching refers to the process of controlling the routing or transmission of optical signals within a network using...

In a semiconductor, the state created by the addition of a dopant that creates excess holes.

A forerunner of the modern camera, this instrument had a focusable lens that produced a sharp image on the enclosure...

A semiconductor laser diode that emits light perpendicular to the active region. The output radiation is taken through the...

A synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields to steer charged particles, typically electrons or...

The utilization of the light produced when electrical energy is directly converted into light within devices used for visual...

Refers to the transistors in which the working current flows through only one type of semiconductor material, either P-type...

A qubit, short for quantum bit, is the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing and quantum information...

A ferroelectric polycrystalline ceramic material used in optical memories for computers and as a piezoelectric transducer.

A variation of the atomic force microscope that operates by scanning a tiny ferromagnetic probe (or a magnetized tip) over a...

A technique that combines two or more imaging processes in order to minimize the disadvantages within each of the...

The triangle in a chromaticity diagram joining the chromaticities of the NTSC phosphors, and containing all chromaticities...

A photodetector in which an electrical charge is produced when incident photons change electrons within the detecting...

The theory and interpretation of spectra produced by the electron emissions of substances after their irradiation by x-rays.

Nanophotonics is a branch of science and technology that explores the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, typically at...

A system designed with a laser as a light source and a means for producing sound waves extending beyond 100 MHz to deflect...

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) refers to a technology used in the fabrication of integrated circuits,...

A rear or front projection screen composed of minute optical surfaces that introduce a spread to the light beam that...

Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) is an advanced imaging technique that provides information about the lifetime of...

A vidicon that has a photoconductive surface that can be excited by infrared radiation.

The optical Fourier transform is a mathematical operation applied to optical signals that involves transforming a spatial...

Although low in sensitivity (approximately 10-7 m for helium-neon lasers), this holographic technique permits quantitative...

Also known as TEA laser. A coherent optical source with a wide wavelength range in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet...

A small incandescent lamp whose intense beam is focused on the optical soundtrack of a motion picture film. The soundtrack...

Technique that uses high-pass filtering to reduce the local average to zero for all regions of the picture and then applies...

A lumen is a unit of measurement used to quantify the amount of luminous flux, which is the perceived power of light. In...

An electric field produced to influence an electron stream much in the same manner that a lens affects a light beam.

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a compound made up of gallium (Ga) and nitrogen (N). It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material...

Hyperspectral imaging is an advanced imaging technique that captures and processes information from across the...

A technique for reducing data processing requirements by electronically defining only a small portion of the image to be...

The pattern used as a probe in morphological image processing to manipulate the size and shape of objects in an image.

A dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) refers to a type of optical fiber designed to minimize the effects of chromatic dispersion,...

The structure that holds the photographic negative in a proper position that is both flat and parallel to the lens plane, as...

A laser device intended for crushing urinary tract stones so they can be flushed from the body. Light is introduced via...

Remote sensing is a method of data collection and observation where information about objects, areas, or phenomena on...

Oleophobic is a term used to describe substances or materials that repel or resist oils. The word oleophobic comes from the...

The angular spectrum approach is a mathematical and computational technique used in the field of optics to analyze and...

Radiography using the emission of gamma rays to form an image of the structure penetrated by the radiation.

A type of radiation detector designed to recognize nonlinear optical effects, such as the Raman effect, by means of a...

A phenomenon, exploited for medical imaging, in which the nuclei of material placed in a strong magnetic field will absorb...

A condition in which the solid inclusions within a glass blank are very numerous, such as 25 or more to the square inch.

A tank with a boiling solvent at the bottom and a ring of cold piping higher up that condenses the liquid and returns it to...

In vivo is a Latin term that translates to "within the living." In scientific contexts, particularly in biology and...

1. A defect inherent in a multiple-axis positioning system whereby an adjustment of one axis causes an undesired change in...

Raster scanning process like that of television: each line is scanned successively.

The process of microphotography that involves the reduction of the original at a ratio greater than 100 to 1. The process is...

An opaque projector is a device used for enlarging and projecting images from opaque objects such as printed pages,...

A step-by-step method of reducing the amount of data in a digital video signal to transmit or store a high-quality image....

Also known as OCT-A, optical coherence tomography angiography is an imaging technique that uses light waves to measure...

A lamp that has mercury in a tube or bulb that has first been evacuated. The electricity travels through the vapor between...

The ratio of the first focal length of a lens to the refractive index of the medium containing the incident light; the ratio...

Single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) is a specialized technique in biophysics and molecular...

1. A framelike structure that serves to restrict the viewing area of the screen when placed before a television picture...

Wavelengths between 400 and 1400 nm (VIS to NIR) are focused onto the retina by the cornea. Because the retina is sensitive...

The effect that characterizes an intense laser beam that is passed through an absorbing medium, causing the absorbed energy...

Epitaxial deposition is a process used in semiconductor manufacturing and materials science to grow a thin crystalline...

The testing by hypothesizing a likely crystal structure, computing a test x-ray diffraction pattern and comparing this to...

A photoconductor that demonstrates increased conductivity during its exposure to infrared radiation.

A uniaxial, birefringent crystal such as calcite or ruby in which the velocity of the extraordinary ray surpasses that of...

A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or...

The diffraction pattern of a source such as a light-emitting diode, injection laser diode or the output end of an optical...

In the context of electronics and optics, an isolator refers to a device that allows the transmission of signals in one...

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive analytical technique that uses the near-infrared region of the...

A holographic camera, also known as a holographic imaging system or holographic recorder, is a specialized device used to...

The point spread function (PSF) is a fundamental concept in imaging that describes the response of an imaging system to a...

Phase matching is a crucial concept in the field of optics, particularly in nonlinear optics and the generation of coherent...

A photographic camera designed to produce reproduction film of visual information (pictures, line drawings, graphs) for...

High harmonic generation (HHG) refers to a nonlinear optical process in which intense laser light interacts with a gaseous...

A phage, short for bacteriophage, is a type of virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. Phages are composed of...

A form of microfiche that has an information reduction ratio that is greater than 100 to 1.

The product of the actual base or baseline of a rangefinder or heightfinder, and the power or magnification of the...

A soft, malleable, stable rare-earth element. Holmium laser systems are used in surgical procedures involving the cutting...

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a mechanism describing the transfer of energy between two closely spaced...

A spectrum that originates from molecules and that is composed of bands which, in turn, consist of many closely spaced...

Photoconductivity that may be extended as far as the microwave region because of the absorption of photons by electrons.

The impurity added to a substance to produce desired properties in the substance.

A lens system made up of two sets of similar lenses, each of which compensates for many of the aberrations produced by the...

The analysis, by x-rays, of the crystalline structure and other properties of metals and alloys.

The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is an optical device used for measuring the wavefront aberrations of an optical system....

The law stating that the amount of chemical change produced is proportional to the amount of light absorbed. Actually, the...

Intravital microscopy is an imaging technique used to visualize biological processes within living organisms, typically in...

Spectral repeatability refers to the consistency and reproducibility of spectral measurements across multiple trials or...

The potential difference between two areas of a semiconductor when one is exposed to light.

A device for inducing mode coupling in an optical fiber. Also, a device composed of one or more optical fibers in which...

A fluorescent screen refers to a phosphorescent or fluorescent-coated surface that emits visible light when exposed to other...

A photovoltaic cell usually sensitive to infrared radiation. It may have a copper base and a film of cuprous oxide. When it...

To control, by magnifying or reducing, the size of a televised image, either electronically or optically.

1. A group of optical fibers that are fused and then treated to produce a vacuum-tight optical fiber cone or plate. 2. An...

Chromatic aberration is an optical phenomenon that occurs when different wavelengths (colors) of light are refracted by a...

Azimuthal polarization refers to a specific polarization state of light where the electric field vector of the...

Eye blink or head movement in response to bright light. Aversion responses such as blinking are sufficient protection from...

CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision...

The study of the quality of the image formed on the retina by the measurement of the flux reflected from the eye when the...

Backscatter refers to the phenomenon in which radiation or waves are scattered backward, opposite to the direction of the...

A photodetector composed of a semiconductor material whose responsive properties can be altered by the addition of...

In general, changes in one oscillation signal caused by another, such as amplitude or frequency modulation in radio which...

A photodetector employing photoregeneration of carriers in the channel region of an FET structure to provide photodetection...

A printing process of electrostatic electrophotography that uses a photoconductive insulating medium, in conjunction with...

A polariscope with a half-shade device and an angular scale generally attached to the analyzer. It is used to measure the...

An interferometer constructed to be positioned on a telescope to measure the angular separation of the components of double...

In semiconductor physics and materials science, the term "III-V materials" refers to compounds composed of elements from...

End-fire coupling refers to a method of coupling energy into or out of a waveguide, transmission line, or antenna, where the...

A filter that transmits light in a series of sharp, widely spaced wavelength bands by its sandwich construction of...

The measurable leakage of optical energy from one optical conductor to another. Also known as optical coupling.

A light-tight box that receives light from an object or scene and focuses it to form an image on a light-sensitive material...

An optical switch that controls conduction paths into and out of a junction in fiber optic and integrated optical circuits.

A device designed to detect microwave modulation and to mix modulated and unmodulated laser beams. It consists of a...

A network interface card (NIC), also known as a network adapter or LAN adapter, is a hardware component that allows...

A lens with an axial thickness adequate to make it producible.

An electric discharge between two carbon rods that are touched together to start the arc and then separated slightly. The...

1. In a cathode-ray tube, the glow surrounding a bright spot that appears on the fluorescent screen as the result of the...

Optical source intended to reduce bleeding as well as to abet wound or vessel healing through cauterization, used in eye...

The gain that occurs between light intensity incident on a CCD given by the photocurrent produced.

A liquid crystal light valve (LCLV), also known as a spatial light modulator (SLM), is an optical device that modulates the...

The Mills Cross telescope is a two dimensional radio telescope in which the two antenna arrays are positioned perpendicular...

A piezoelectric transducer made of a thin strip of piezoelectric material bonded to a strip of metal.

A gas maser that is capable of producing radiation in the far-infrared region of the spectrum.

Also known as the Bragg spectrometer. A system used for the x-ray analysis of crystal structure. In the instrument, a...

An electroluminescent semiconductor that emits low intensity radiation in the green or red regions. Used as an indicator...

A digital imaging method whereby the first gray level of each sequential point-by-point sample and its position in the...

The photographic recording of images produced by the electrons from an electron microscope. The electron beam carries the...

The creation of a diode laser structure by liquid-phase epitaxy over a grooved substrate.

An adhesive used to hold optical elements to blocking tools. It is usually a thermoplastic substance such as resin, beeswax,...

In optics and photolithography, a phase mask refers to a device that modifies the phase of light waves passing through it....

Histology is the branch of biology and medicine that involves the study of the microscopic structure of tissues and organs...

A diagnostic instrument that uses a photocathode design to see a broad range of x-ray radiation by streaking the...

An optical instrument designed to displace the line of sight in a vertical direction. For submarines and other military uses...

Spectroscopy characterized by the Mossbauer effect - recoilless emission and absorption of nuclear gamma radiation- which...

In the context of optical materials, the term "impurity level" refers to the presence of foreign atoms or molecules within...

A three-terminal semiconductor having only one PN junction and a stable, open-circuit, negative-resistance property.

A high-frequency pulse-rate laser with an output limited by the heat capacity of the laser medium. Instead of having...

A form of laser output noise that is caused by thermal, mechanical, or acoustical disturbances of the cavity length. Mode...

In biology, particularly genetics and evolutionary biology, the phenotype refers to the observable characteristics or traits...

A glass structure from which an optical fiber waveguide may be drawn.

The spontaneous emittance of electromagnetic radiation by the nucleus of certain radioactive elements during their quantum...

The Lorentz oscillator model is a theoretical model used in physics to describe the response of a charged particle (such as...

A monolithic device containing both photonic and electronic sources, detectors, modulators, etc., on a single semiconductor...

Supercontinuum refers to a broad spectrum of light that spans a wide range of wavelengths, typically from the visible to the...

The region at the PN junction in a semiconductor radiation detector where the potential energies of the two materials create...

Pertaining to radiation or particle emission, whereby the emission is produced with minimal energy spread.

A projection printer that is capable of reproducing a multiplicity of images from a master transparency on a single support...

An anastigmatic lens with a thick meniscus construction that flattens the field and corrects chromatic and spherical...

I/O stands for input/output. In computing, it refers to the communication between a computer system or program and its...

PCSEL stands for "photonic crystal surface-emitting laser." It refers to a type of laser diode that emits light from its...

In a lens, the square of the radius of its aperture divided by the product of the focal length and the wavelength. It...

GigE, short for gigabit Ethernet, refers to a standard for high-speed Ethernet communication, capable of transmitting data...

In optics, an image is the reconstruction of light rays from a source or object when light from that source or object is...

A photoanalytical instrument for analysis of jaundice conditions in infants that measures bilirubin (a breakdown product of...

A laser having a material, such as ruby, that has an energy state structure of three levels: the ground state (1) wherein...