Photonics Dictionary: M

Composed of one color; having only one wavelength of radiation.

A monochromator is an optical instrument used to isolate and select a narrow range of wavelengths from a broader spectrum of light. The term monochromator is derived from "monochromatic," meaning...

A type of tubing used to protect optical fiber cables, consisting of a wire spiral of aluminum, galvanized steel or stainless steel, encased in a polyvinyl chloride or silicon rubber coating. These...

1. Viewed with one eye. 2. Describing an image as viewed from a single angle.

A device that is fabricated in a single piece; A device (i.e. circuit) that is operated at a single frequency or a single class of frequencies.

A character generation CRT that functions on the principle of secondary emission. The target holds a set of aluminum characters, select characters being scanned by the electron beam. The secondary...

A set of algorithms used to study the structural and spatial characteristics of objects in a digitized image for applications including feature extraction and image segmentation in machine vision and...

A group of photosensors arranged in a grid-like pattern covering the entire field of view, enabling them to record it all at once (as a camera records an image on film) rather than by scanning parts...

In a crystal, its subdivision into polyhedral blocks of macroscopic sizes, with discontinuities contained in the lattice formation between them.

Spectroscopy characterized by the Mossbauer effect - recoilless emission and absorption of nuclear gamma radiation- which investigates miniscule changes in the energy levels of atomic nuclei in...

In optics, a motion controller refers to a device or system that precisely controls the movement of optical components, such as mirrors, lenses, stages, or other elements within an optical setup. The...

Capacity of a vision system to capture an image of an object in motion and to resolve the direction and speed of that motion.

The visual phenomenon of the apparent difference in the rate of motion of two objects that are actually moving at the same velocity but that lie at different distances from the observer.

The unequal angular velocities of two objects moving at equal speeds but at different distances from the observer, which are just noticeable.

Method for reducing laser speckle in which the object field comes from a real diffuse object or the reconstructed object field from a hologram. During recording of the image, an aperture is moved in...

A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode is a type of photodetector that consists of metal electrodes on a semiconductor material. Unlike the more common PIN photodiodes, which have a P-type and...

Multi-axis alignment refers to the process of aligning or adjusting components or systems in multiple spatial dimensions or axes. In various technical and engineering contexts, achieving precise...

A photon-counting instrument for use in both space-borne and ground-based photometric and spectroscopic instrumentation. This style of detector is composed of opaque photocathodes for photon to...

A spectrometric instrument that detects radiation simultaneously in multiple channels, sorts it spectrally from the deep ultraviolet to the infrared, digitizes the information and stores it for...

A fiber optic connector or splice that mates two multifiber cables, optically aligning all of the individual fibers simultaneously.

A multihaul transceiver is an optical transceiver module designed to support multiple network architectures or transmission technologies within a single compact device. It offers versatility and...

A photovoltaic device that consists of multiple p-n junctions to produce a greater efficiency when in use than that of traditional single junction devices. A multijunction device is unique because...

A coating made up of many layers of material having alternating high and low refractive index. In this way, it is possible to produce coatings with a great variety of properties. These may be...

A multiline laser system refers to a type of laser that is capable of emitting multiple discrete wavelengths or spectral lines simultaneously. Unlike single-line lasers, which produce radiation at a...

A technique that combines two or more imaging processes in order to minimize the disadvantages within each of the contributing processes. In medical applications, combining multiple modalities...

A method of reducing dark current in charge-coupled devices by holding all the clocks at negative voltage during the integration period.

A process involving the interaction (absorption, emission or both) of two or more photons with a molecular entity.

A camera that uses a rotating mirror to project sequential images onto lenses that are arranged in an arc. The reflected images can then be recorded on stationary film. By using an 8-mm frame format,...

A laser having a Q-switching method that allows separate parallel volumes of the lasing material to act independently of each other and produce several separate beams. It is useful in high-speed...

The combination of two or more signals for transmission along a single wire, path or carrier. In most optical communication systems this is referred to as wavelength division multiplexing, in which...

Multispectral imaging is a technique that involves capturing and analyzing images at multiple discrete spectral bands within the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike hyperspectral imaging, which acquires...

A collection of color samples arranged in charts according to equal visually spaced steps in Munsell hue, value and chroma.

Numerical scale of chroma devised by A.H. Munsell and exhibited in the Munsell Book of Color.

Numerical scale of hue devised by A.H. Munsell and exhibited in the Munsell Book of Color.

Numerical scale of lightness devised by A.H. Munsell and exhibited in the Munsell Book of Color.

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path difference to create interference between split optical wavefronts. The...

E.I. duPont's trade name for a polyester film. The most practical beamsplitter for use beyond the 15-µm wavelength because of its high efficiency. It exhibits high visible transmission, allowing...

A vision defect commonly referred to as nearsightedness. The defective condition results when the image of a distant object is focused in front of the retina by the relaxed eye. It can be corrected...