Photonics Dictionary

An accelerator at the Argonne National Laboratory, providing powerful x-ray beams for materials research applications.

In fiber optics, the limitation on performance imposed by the amplitude of a received signal rather than distortion.

An attenuator is an electronic or optical device used to reduce the power or intensity of a signal without significantly affecting its waveform or other characteristics. Attenuators are commonly used...

Blaze height typically refers to a parameter in the context of diffraction gratings, which are optical devices consisting of a series of closely spaced parallel grooves or slits. The blaze height 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...

The Casimir force is a quantum phenomenon that results in an attractive force between two closely spaced uncharged conductive surfaces. This force arises from the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the...

A system that uses both reflection and refraction to achieve its focal power. While the relative powers of the lenses and mirrors vary from system to system, the use of the reflective surfaces to...

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...

A powerful and flexible machine-learning approach that can be used in machine vision to help solve difficult problems. Inspired by biological processes, multiple layers of neurons process portions of...

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...

A concave surface that has too much negative power; i.e., its radius of curvature is too short. This condition can be corrected if material is removed from the center section of the polisher.

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...

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...

The limitation on performance imposed by the distortion of a received signal rather than its amplitude or power.

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 electrowetting display (EWD) is a type of electronic display technology that utilizes the principles of electrowetting to control the behavior of colored oil droplets on a hydrophobic surface....

Embedded vision refers to the integration of computer vision technologies into various embedded systems, devices, or machines. Computer vision involves teaching machines to interpret and understand...

The emissivity of a body times the emissive power of a blackbody at the same temperature. For a blackbody, it is the total radiation per unit area of radiating surface.

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 standard for fiber optic data transmission systems being developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and associated working groups that will make fiber optic components from...

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...

An extremely powerful microscope that renders individual ionized atoms visible by using an electric field to propel the ions to a fluorescent screen where they are magnified.

A pulsed dye laser in which the excitation is provided by means of a flashlamp. Output is tunable from 335 to 850 nm, with peak power up to 7000 kW.

Flow cytometry is a powerful technique used in biology and medicine for the quantitative analysis of the physical and chemical characteristics of cells and particles suspended in a fluid. The method...

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 powerful method, referred to as FCS, for determining the average diffusion coefficients of fluorescent molecules in solution or membranes. FCS measurements rely on recording the transition of...

Fluorescence lifetime refers to the average time it takes for a fluorophore, a molecule that absorbs light at one wavelength and emits it at another, to return to its ground state after being excited...

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...

A Fresnel lens is a type of optical lens that consists of a series of concentric grooves or steps carved into a flat, thin piece of transparent material, typically plastic or glass. This design...

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption or emission of a solid, liquid, or gas sample. It operates based...

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...

Gallium nitride-based light-emitting diodes (GaN-based LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electric current passes through them. These LEDs are constructed using gallium nitride...