Photonics Dictionary

The ratio of the power in a desired signal to the undesirable noise present in the absence of a signal.

A detector array refers to a collection of individual detector elements arranged in a two-dimensional grid or matrix format. Each element within the array is capable of detecting electromagnetic...

An EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge-coupled device) camera is a type of scientific camera specifically designed for low-light imaging applications that require high sensitivity and fast readout...

The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) obtained with a Fourier transform spectrometer when detector noise prevails, which exceeds the SNR of a scanning spectrometer in the same time by a factor proportional...

An infrared detector is a device that is used to detect and measure infrared radiation, which lies beyond the visible spectrum of light. These detectors are utilized in various applications,...

Integration time, in the context of optics, imaging systems, and sensor technology, refers to the duration over which a sensor collects and accumulates incoming light or signal. It is a crucial...

A lock-in amplifier is a specialized electronic instrument used to extract and measure small signals embedded in noise or interference. It is particularly useful in fields such as spectroscopy,...

An optical channel monitor (OCM) is a device used in optical communication systems to monitor and analyze the performance of individual channels within a wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)...