Photonics Dictionary

A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) is a type of gyroscope that uses laser light to detect and measure changes in orientation. It operates based on the Sagnac effect, which is a fundamental principle of...

A Risley prism, also known as a Risley prism pair or Risley rotating prism, is an optical device used for controlling the direction of a laser beam or other optical beam by independently rotating two...

A structured light device using a rapidly rotating laser to project a beam of light that appears to the human eye as a continuous circle; used as a reference marker on walls or landscape for...

Sagnac interferometry is a technique used to measure rotation or angular velocity based on the principle of interference. It relies on the Sagnac effect, named after the French physicist Georges...

A light, radar or electron beam used to scan according to a particular method.

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a powerful imaging instrument used in scientific research, materials characterization, and various industrial applications. Unlike traditional optical...

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to obtain high-resolution, three-dimensional images of the surfaces of solid specimens. SEM achieves this by...

1. The continuous thin strip marked by the scanning beam. Generally, during return of the scan, the line is blanked out. 2. The thin strip marked by the scanning process and composed of the...

1. The variation in intensity of a light beam as it travels through the atmosphere. 2. In radiation physics, a light flash formed by an ionizing event in a phosphor; a flash formed when rapidly...

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that belongs to the powder bed fusion category. SLM is primarily used for metal additive manufacturing, where...

Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical phenomenon that occurs when an intense laser beam passes through a medium, causing a change in the phase of the light due to its interaction with...

Sisyphus cooling is a technique used in atomic physics to achieve ultracold temperatures of atoms or molecules by exploiting the periodic motion of particles in optical traps or lattices. The name...

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that split a polarized beam of light into ordinary and extraordinary rays, then...

A solid-state laser is a type of laser that uses a solid gain medium (as opposed to a liquid or gas) to produce coherent light. The term "solid-state" refers to the fact that the active medium, where...

Spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) is an optical microscopy technique that belongs to the category of quantitative phase imaging methods. It is designed to provide high-resolution,...

A spatial light modulator (SLM) is an optical device that modulates or manipulates the amplitude, phase, or polarization of light in two dimensions, typically in the form of an array. SLMs are...

When, for example, a beam of monochromatic light passes through a diffraction grating, the emergent rays that have remained undeviated are included in the zero spectral order. The light flux in the...

A spectrophotometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the intensity of light at various wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically in the visible and ultraviolet regions. It is...

STED microscopy, or stimulated emission depletion microscopy, is a superresolution imaging technique in fluorescence microscopy that surpasses the diffraction limit, enabling the visualization of...

Light from a pulsed laser focused into nonsaturable absorbing fluid that generates a strongly backscattered light beam with a frequency higher than that of the incident light.

The parameters, relative to polarized light and the Poincaré sphere, that are usually represented as: I, the intensity of the light beam; M, that part of the beam polarized in the horizontal plane;...

Controlled beam technology that introduces beams of sunlight through holes in a roof that are relayed throughout the building by a series of mirrors and lenses. Ideally, cool lighting is obtained by...

Superresolution refers to the enhancement or improvement of the spatial resolution beyond the conventional limits imposed by the diffraction of light. In the context of imaging, it is a set of...

(SALI) A type of spectroscopy in which neutral atoms or molecules are ionized by an excimer laser beam and then measured by a time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

A synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields to steer charged particles, typically electrons or positrons, in a closed, circular or elliptical path. The name synchrotron...

A characteristic of laser output, calculated by dividing the speed of light by the linewidth of the laser beam. The temporal coherence length of different lasers thus varies from a few centimeters to...

1. The process of following an object's movement; accomplished by focusing a radar beam on the reticle of an optical system on the object and plotting its bearing and distance at specific intervals....

In fiber optic communications, a light source whose beam can be modulated and sent along an optical fiber, and the electronics that support it.

A Pockels cell in which electrical current is applied in a direction orthogonally to that of the light beam.

Two-photon polymerization (TPP) is a technique used in additive manufacturing, specifically in the field of 3D printing. It involves using a focused laser to polymerize a photosensitive material in a...

Twyman-Green interferometry is a technique used in optics to measure the flatness or surface profile of optical components with high precision. It is based on the principles of interference of light...

The effect by which sufficiently small particles will scatter blue light at right angles to the incident beam. This scattered light is completely linearly polarized.

The optical diffraction spectra formed, or the method that produces them, when a light beam is transmitted through a longitudinal sound field.

An instrument with a fluid that modulates a light beam traversing it because of the effect of ultrasonic waves passing through the fluid.

A light-interference device whose excitation is determined by the modulation of a light beam by an ultrasonic field.

Short-distance scattering of light in holography caused by random index inhomogeneities and the developing index that interferes with the incident beam, thus recording a hologram of the scattered...

Volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) are specialized optical elements that consist of periodic variations in refractive index throughout the volume of a transparent material, typically a photosensitive glass...

A vortex phase plate is an optical device designed to impart a phase singularity, commonly referred to as a vortex or phase vortex, onto a light beam. This singularity results in a phase profile...

A refractometer that has a greater resolving power than a standard refractometer, and that uses a pentagonal prism to split the light from a single slit into two beams.

Irradiation of a cylindrical crystal with an x-ray beam resulting in Bragg diffraction that produces a slightly enlarged image.

The method by which Thomas Young in 1802 disproved Newton's corpuscular theory of light by the formation of interference patterns between two beams of light from the same source. This was produced by...