Photonics Dictionary

An alexandrite laser is a solid-state laser that utilizes a synthetic crystal made from the rare earth element alexandrite (BeAl2O4:Cr3+). This crystal is capable of emitting laser light in the...

A form of high-power microscope objective.

Charged frozen pellets that are rapidly bombarded with a focused high-power laser to form a dense plasma that can be heated and sustained with neutral beams.

A waveguide that has a core with a lower refractive index than the refractive index of the cladding. This structure can limit the power of the transmitted beam by removing unwanted radiation, for...

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It involves measuring and visualizing how the optical power or intensity is...

A compound prism composed of two 30° prisms, one of which is partially coated with a suitable opaque metal of high reflecting power. The prisms are cemented with Canada balsam so that the coated...

Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with acoustic phonons (quantized lattice vibrations) in a material, resulting in the...

A gas laser in which the energy-state transitions between vibrational and rotational states of CO2 molecules give emission at long IR, about 10 µm, wavelengths. The laser can maintain...

A CCD camera, or charge-coupled device camera, is a type of digital camera that utilizes a CCD image sensor to capture and record images. CCD cameras are widely used in various applications,...

A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images into electronic signals. It is a key component in digital cameras, camcorders,...

Chip-on-board (COB) lights refer to a type of LED lighting technology where multiple LED chips are directly mounted onto a substrate, typically a printed circuit board (PCB), without the need for...

Chirped mirrors are optical devices designed to manipulate the spectral properties of ultrashort laser pulses. They consist of multiple layers of dielectric coatings deposited on a substrate, where...

Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique used in laser physics to amplify ultrashort laser pulses to high energies without causing damage to the amplifying medium. The method was first...

A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to capture digital images. CMOS cameras have become ubiquitous due to their low...

CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision and industrial imaging applications. It enables high-speed data...

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) refers to a technology used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, particularly semiconductor devices like microprocessors, memory chips, and image...

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light or electromagnetic waves back towards their source with minimal deviation in...

Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is an optical communication technique used to increase the data-carrying capacity of optical fiber networks by simultaneously transmitting multiple...

Diffraction efficiency is a measure of how effectively a diffractive optical element (DOE) or diffraction grating directs light into specific diffraction orders or achieves a desired optical effect....

A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...

A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into a solid gain medium, resulting in the generation of coherent light. This...

Also called DLIP, a high-speed, high-resolution processing technique that uses high-power, pulsed laser systems to directly ablate micro- and nanoperiodic structures with different features on large...

Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often associated with military and technological applications where energy, typically...

Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a specialized optical fiber that features two concentric cladding layers surrounding a core. The design of double-clad fibers allows them to be used in various...

An electro-optic deflector is a device that can change the direction of light beams using an electric field. It operates based on the electro-optic effect, which involves the modulation of the...

The study of the generation of electromagnetic power by radiation from high-energy beams.

An electrophoretic display, often referred to as an electronic paper display or e-paper display, is a type of electronic visual display technology used in electronic devices for the purpose of...

A type of laser pulsing with high laser power at the beginning of the pulse.

An event-based image sensor, also known as a dynamic vision sensor (DVS), is a type of digital imaging device designed to capture visual information in a highly efficient and unique way compared to...

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) refers to a specific range of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. EUV radiation has wavelengths between 10 and 124 nanometers, which...

A femtosecond laser is a type of laser that emits ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of femtoseconds, where one femtosecond is equal to 10-15 seconds. These lasers are capable of...

A phenomenon in which high optical power, encountering an imperfection in an optical fiber, destroys the fiber's core and causes damage to back-propagate down the fiber. It is caused by classic...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as erbium, ytterbium, or neodymium. Fiber lasers generate coherent light through...

A fiber optic spectrometer is a device used for measuring the spectral content of light. It utilizes optical fibers to transmit light from a source to a spectrometer unit, where the light is...

A fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic communications to transmit and receive data over optical fibers. It integrates both a...

A low-power telescope with a wide field of view, typically attached to a higher power telescope with a narrower field of view. This enables an observer to locate a celestial object with the...

Fluorescence is a type of luminescence, which is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. Specifically, fluorescence involves the absorption of...

A free-electron laser (FEL) is a type of laser that generates coherent, high-intensity electromagnetic radiation by using a beam of accelerated electrons as the lasing medium. Unlike traditional...

A frequency comb is a precise and regular series of equally spaced spectral lines, or frequencies, that are generated with great accuracy. The term "frequency comb" is often associated with the Nobel...

Fusion ignition refers to the point in a controlled nuclear fusion reaction where the energy released by the fusion reactions becomes self-sustaining, leading to a continuous release of energy...

A GaAlAs laser is a type of semiconductor laser diode that emits light in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is composed of layers of gallium, aluminum, and arsenic, hence...

Gain-switching is a technique used in lasers to generate short pulses of light by modulating the gain of the laser medium. This method is distinct from Q-switching and mode-locking, two other common...

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a compound made up of gallium (Ga) and nitrogen (N). It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material that exhibits unique electrical and optical properties. Gallium nitride is...

GaN (gallium nitride) distributed feedback (DFB) lasers refer to a specific type of semiconductor laser based on Gallium Nitride materials and designed with a distributed feedback structure. These...