Photonics Handbook

High-brightness LEDs have found their way into applications such as signs and displays, cell phone flash modules, automotive lighting and general illumination. Some applications, however, such as...

Optical design software allows the user to develop a configuration of optical elements that manipulate the trajectory of light for the purposes of creating an image, illuminating a target, coupling...

To the novice or casual user of optics, the acquisition of an optical system can be a very difficult experience. Failure to understand the ground rules can result in unnecessarily high cost, late...

Optical coatings are deposited as thin-film multilayers of a variety of materials using specific deposition techniques. Coatings are applied to optical components that are intended for use at...

An optical coating engineer is frequently confronted with a difficult specification for a coating. Often the difficulty in the specification results from the particular form of the optical system. If...

Photonics Rules of Thumb Scientists and engineers tend to want to answer simple relational questions with a blackboard covered with equations, even when questioners just want a rough estimate to...

Image intensification, the basis of night vision, is a complex conversion of energy particles that occurs within a vacuum tube. An image-intensifier system works by collecting photons through an...

Since their invention in the late 1960s, charge-coupled devices, also called CCDs, have found widespread use in imaging applications. Electronic cameras based on CCD technology are used in...

Adhesives for fiber optic components that perform well on glass, metal, ceramic and most plastic substrates provide excellent chemical and solvent resistance. They also can act as an electrical...

That portion of the spectrum that the eye can see — and its rainbow of colors — is rather small, covering approximately 360 to 830 nm. What colors we perceive depends on wavelength, while...

Lenses come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials. They can be made of a single piece of glass or have multiple elements; their surfaces can be spherical, aspheric or cylindrical; they can be...