Bristol Instruments, Inc. - 872 Series High-Res 4/24 LB

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HIWIN Corp. - Linear Motor Stages MR 6/24

Videology Industrial-Grade Cameras - Mini Color Camera 2024 HP

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Photonics Dictionary: L

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law of Brewster

The law stating that when light strikes a surface at such an angle that the reflected and refracted rays are perpendicular to each other, the maximum polarization of the light occurs in both...

law of reflection

The law stating that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, the incident ray, reflected ray and normal to the surface, all being located in the same plane.

law of reversibility

In physics, the law of reversibility is often associated with the concept of reversibility in thermodynamics. The law asserts that any process that occurs in a closed system can, in theory, be...

Lawson criterion

Defines the minimum operational standards for a self-sustaining fusion reactor as equivalence between energy released per volume unit and kinetic energy per unit volume.

layout

In the optical shop, the process of positioning and marking a blank or lens before surfacing, cutting and edging.

LDEF

Long Duration Exposure Facility

leading edge spike

In a sequence of laser pulse emissions, the intitial pulse that often helps initiate a reaction at the target surface, whereas the trailing edge maintains the reaction.

LED -> light-emitting diode

An LED, or light emitting diode, is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. LEDs are widely used in various applications due to their energy efficiency,...

LEED

laser-energized explosive device; low-energy electron diffraction

leman prism

An erecting prism that inverts and reverses the image. It displaces the optical axis but does not deviate it.

Lenard tube

An electron-beam tube designed so that the beam can be carried through a portion of the wall of an evacuated enclosure.

lens bench -> optical bench

A support for optical parts comprising a solid bed that permits precise longitudinal movement of one component relative to the others, and a number of sliders equipped with holders for lenses, lamps,...

lens blank

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 lenses are eventually fabricated. Lens blanks are made from various...

lens measure

A tool used to determine the curvature of a lens surface in terms of dioptric power. See lens watch; spherometer.

lens meridian

A line passing through the center of a lens surface, from edge to edge.

lens molding

The production of rough glass lens blanks that are pressed while red-hot to the approximate size and shape of the finished lens, ready for fine grinding and polishing. Large companies often do their...

lens mount

The metal tube that maintains the optical components of a lens in proper relationship. Some lenses are mounted in metal cells, which in turn are screwed to the front and rear of a shutter or lens...

lens system

Two or more lenses arranged to act in conjunction with one another.

lens testing equipment

Lens testing equipment refers to a range of specialized tools and instruments used to evaluate the optical performance, quality, and characteristics of lenses. These instruments are essential for...

lens

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses are commonly used in optical systems, such as cameras, telescopes,...

lensless Fourier transform hologram

A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording, each object point produces fringes having one spatial frequency across the...

lensless microscopy

Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and reconstructs microscopic images without the use of traditional lenses. Instead of...

lensometer

An ophthalmic instrument used to measure the magnitude and direction of the maximum and minimum powers of a spectacle lens, and mark the optical center of the lens by an ink dot. When the lens to be...

lenticular

An array or mosaic of optical surfaces. May be a number of lenses closely packed to form multiple images or many parallel cylinders used as a projection screen.

lenticular color photography

A type of additive color photography using a lenticular structure impressed on a film base and a camera lens with a filter having three sectors of red, blue and green. Exposure of the film through...

lenticular screen

A rear or front projection screen composed of minute optical surfaces that introduce a spread to the light beam that conforms approximately to the light distribution requirements of the application.

lenticular stereo photography

A type of stereoscopic photography in which a pair of lenses focuses a pair of images, relative to the positions of the two eyes, onto film through a lenticular screen, which records the images as an...

lepton

The generic term describing the class of light particles having no strong interactions.

levorotary

Characterizes a substance whose plane of polarization is rotated counterclockwise as the observer looks through the material toward the light source. The rotation is negative.

LFBR

laser fusion breeder reactor

LFM

laser feedback microscope; lateral force microscope; longitudinal field modulator

lidar

Lidar, short for light detection and ranging, is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape and...

light beating -> photoelectric mixing

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

light diffusion

Light diffusion refers to the process by which light is scattered or spread out in various directions as it interacts with a medium or material. Unlike direct transmission through a transparent...

light dispersion

The process whereby white light is separated into its component wavelengths. Light beams of different wavelengths are separated from each other by undergoing a different angular deviation. Prisms and...

light fidelity

LiFi, short for light fidelity, is a wireless communication technology that utilizes visible light or infrared light to transmit data. Developed as an alternative or complementary technology to...

light field

The term light field refers to the spatial distribution of light rays traveling in all directions through a given space. It includes information about the intensity and direction of light rays at...

light frame

The term for an image captured by a detector and from which a dark frame, bias frame and/or flat-field frame can be subtracted during image processing.

light modulator

A device that is designed to modulate a beam of light, usually from a laser source, by acting upon the beam directly. The three general types of devices operate in an acousto-optic, electro-optic or...

light pattern

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

light pen

A handheld, light-sensitive device that is used with a display console to directly change, measure or erase the visual information presented. Interfaced with the computer that is generating the...

light sectioning

Technique for measuring the volume bulk of materials as they move along a conveyor with an accuracy of better than 1 percent. Based on the use of high-resolution arrays of solid-state detectors, the...

light sheet fluorescence microscopy

Also known as single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), this process was designed for imaging of sensitive samples and fast biological processes in vivo. In this method, a light sheet illuminates...

light source power

The electrical power used to stimulate any light source. Power supplies may be step-up or step-down transformers; rectifiers to convert AC to DC; ammeters and voltmeters to observe the input to the...

light throughput efficiency

The fraction of incident light power in an optical modulator that is available to the output beam.

light valve

With respect to display systems, a device that uses an independent light source and a control-layer medium, the active optical element, to convert an electrical charge image to an optical image....

light-beating spectroscopy

The spectroscopic analysis of optical line shapes and frequency shifts, using the technique of light beating; i.e., the mixing of two narrowband optical components to produce an AC component in the...

light-emitting diode

An LED, or light emitting diode, is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. LEDs are widely used in various applications due to their energy efficiency,...

linar

Celestial point sources that emit specific wavelengths of radiation that appear on spectral charts as narrow lines. The term linar is a contraction of line and star.

line scan

Line scan refers to a method of capturing images or data by scanning a single line at a time, as opposed to capturing the entire image simultaneously. This technique is commonly used in various...

Photonics DictionaryL