Photonics Dictionary

Supercontinuum refers to a broad spectrum of light that spans a wide range of wavelengths, typically from the visible to the near-infrared or even mid-infrared regions of the electromagnetic...

Observed phenomenon in laser pulses in which a large number of excited electrons are created and in which multiphoton processes have produced seed electrons, and excited neutral atoms are...

An image of an object that appears above the object's true position as the result of abnormal refraction of the image rays by the atmosphere.

Superluminal transmission refers to the hypothetical process of transmitting information faster than the speed of light, which is commonly denoted as superluminal or faster-than-light (FTL)...

An emitter based on stimulated emission with amplification but insufficient feedback for oscillation to build up.

A reflector having a surface that has been superpolished to reduce residual sleeks and scratches and microroughness so that its scatter coefficient is low. Its surface is said to have a low-scatter...

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...

A liquid crystal display using the material in its supertwisted nematic phase; the birefringence of the liquid crystal results in a characteristic yellow or blue color, unless corrected.

The material removed during diamond machining of glass components.

Swept-source optical coherence tomography is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics, particularly in ophthalmology, to visualize and analyze the internal structures of biological tissues,...

A swept-source laser, also known as a wavelength-swept laser, is a type of laser that rapidly and continuously changes its emission wavelength over time. This continuous wavelength tuning is achieved...

A lens system made up of two sets of similar lenses, each of which compensates for many of the aberrations produced by the other. The lens sets are arranged symmetrically on either side of the...

Any systemic process that ultimately reassembles all the system's components into their initial alignment, or an arrangement that exactly reproduces the initial relative alignment.

Abbreviation of "synchronization.'' In television, the timing signals used to drive the scanning process. Horizontal sync triggers the retracing of the raster line beginning at the left-hand...

A standard for fiber optic telecommunications interfaces, with a 1300-nm data link operating over single-mode fiber at data rates of 52, 155 and 622 Mb/s.

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...

Radiation emitted by electrons when they travel in circular orbits at speeds close to that of light. Synchrotron radiation occurs in the x-ray and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. Once considered...

Imaging radar that increases the sweep of its along-track (or azimuth) capacity by measuring not only the time delay of the echoes returning from the microwave pulse transmitted by its antenna (or...

An imaging technique in which an object moving through an interference field formed in space scatters light and is spatially recorded on a photographic film as a hologram. If the interference field...

Abbreviated SoC. A single chip containing all the electronic circuits required for a complete, working product. SoCs are similar to microcontroller technology but provide additional components. A SoC...

A device for extracting a portion of the optical signal from a fiber.

A waveguide having a characteristic that is altered continuously with the distance traveled, relative to the axis of its path.

Angular tracking measurement estimated from the properly normalized image second-moment tensor.

In television, a lateral displacement of the lines from their normal position due to the instability of a synchronizing circuit. Visually, it appears as though parts of the images had been torn away.

There are three types of telecentric lenses: -Image-space telecentric lenses are those in which the aperture stop is located at the front focus, resulting in the chief rays being parallel to the...

A compound lens so constructed that its overall length is equal to or less than its effective focal length.

An instrument used to measure the luminance (brightness) of a distant object. The object is viewed through a small telescope, and a mirror in the focal plane reflects an internal illuminated surface...

The use of head-mounted displays and body-operated remote actuators to control distant machinery. Provides a virtual environment for humans to control devices, robots, etc., in a hostile real...

The image of the aperture stop, usually the objective lens, that is produced by the eye lens. When the exit pupil of the telescope coincides with the entrance pupil of the eye of the observer, the...

A telescope lens is a primary optical component of a telescope system that gathers and focuses light to form an image. It is typically a curved, transparent piece of glass or other optical material...

The base used to hold an astronomical telescope. It may be either altazimuth, with horizontal and vertical axes of rotation, or equatorial, with one axis parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation and...

The material favored for study of interaction of high-acoustic intensities with free carriers. Tellurium is the semiconductor with the largest piezoelectric constants. Tellurium oxide is the material...

A glass that is heated, then chilled (usually by an air blast) to set up internal stresses so that the surfaces are under compression. This strengthens the glass, since glass breaks only in tension,...

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...

Characteristic of deflected light power defined as the quadratic invariant function of the video signal amplitude.

A terahertz spectrometer is a scientific instrument used to measure and analyze the properties of materials in the terahertz frequency range, typically spanning from about 0.1 to 10 terahertz (THz),...

Terahertz (THz) refers to a unit of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, denoting waves with frequencies between 0.1 and 10 terahertz. One terahertz is equivalent to one trillion hertz, or...

An optical matrix that does not require perfection in both states of the crosspoint, so that all the optical switches can be tap-off devices in which a fraction of the optical energy is transferred...