Photonics Dictionary

A branched fiber optic lightguide that performs both receiving and transmitting functions.

A dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) refers to a type of optical fiber designed to minimize the effects of chromatic dispersion, which is the phenomenon where different wavelengths of light travel at...

An optical fiber that can be used to amplify an optical input. Erbium rare earth ions are added to the fiber core material as a dopant in typical levels of a few hundred parts per million. The fiber...

Fiber optic cable in which the arrangement of fibers within the bundle has been made random so that output light will be uniformly distributed and not relay the image of the light source at the input...

An optical fiber in which ions of a rare-earth element, such as neodymium, erbium or holmium, have been incorporated into the glass core matrix, yielding high absorption with low loss in the visible...

A fiber for which the difference between the maximum and the minimum refractive index is small, usually less than 1 percent.

Unused fiber; fiber that has been installed but reserved for future use. Carrying no light.

Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a specialized optical fiber that features two concentric cladding layers surrounding a core. The design of double-clad fibers allows them to be used in various...

A phenomenon in which high optical power, encountering an imperfection in an optical fiber, destroys the fiber's core and causes damage to back-propagate down the fiber. It is caused by classic...

The spectral transmission window in silica-based fibers between 830 and 850 nm.

The optical power loss caused by a space between axially aligned fibers.

Temporal jitter at a signal's receiver when amplified noise causes frequency shifts, as with a soliton traveling through an erbium-doped fiber amplifier.

An absorbing coating medium between fibers, used in some fused fiber optic plates to absorb unwanted light. Such coatings are sometimes called EMA (extramural absorption).

The outer material that surrounds and protects the buffered and unbuffered fibers in an optical cable.

A microbubble resonator is a device used in photonics and optical physics for the precise manipulation of light waves. It consists of a micro-sized, gas-filled spherical cavity (the "microbubble")...

Optoelectronics is a branch of electronics that focuses on the study and application of devices and systems that use light and its interactions with different materials. The term "optoelectronics" is...

Rare earth dopants refer to elements from the lanthanide series, also known as rare earth elements, that are intentionally introduced into the crystal lattice of a material to modify its properties....

A container that prevents spliced fibers from becoming damaged or being misplaced.

A device that enables visual tracing of a fiber optic cable to check for breaks and defects by coupling visible light into the cable. Also called fiber tracer.

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for obtaining high-quality diffraction patterns from single crystals. This...