Photonics Handbook

Optical fibers are made from either glass or plastic. Most are roughly the diameter of a human hair, and they may be many miles long. Light is transmitted along the center of the fiber from one end...

In general, there are three common approaches to reducing mechanical excitation of photonic systems. The first is identifying the sources of vibration and implementing ways to eliminate or reduce...

Abbe Error — Linear off-axis errors introduced by angular deviations coupled to a moment arm at the point of interest on stage mounted devices (θ in Figure 1). The effect of Abbe error...

An optical time-domain reflectometer sends short pulses of light into a fiber and measures its reflections as a function of time. The delay of these reflections to the detector as well as their...

Simple Meniscus Lens The simple meniscus lens is almost universally used in inexpensive cameras. To get an image of good quality it must be used with a separate aperture stop, reducing the...

As bit rates increase to meet expanding demand, systems have become increasingly sensitive to polarization-related impairments. These include polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fibers,...