Definitions: M

A vacuum tube in which a magnetic field is superimposed onto the tube's electrical field. When the two fields are aligned, electrons from the photocathode are accelerated through the tube in a spiral...

A type of high-speed photographic shutter that uses Faraday rotation to produce exposure times as fast as 1 microsecond. It consists of two polarizers, set with their planes of polarization at right...

In astronomy, the relative brightness of a celestial body. Originally a scale from 1 to 6, where 1 represented the brightest and 6 the faintest visible night sky objects. This scale has been expanded...

A magnon is a quasiparticle representing a quantized spin wave in a magnetic material. In other words, it is a collective excitation of the spins of electrons in a magnetic solid, analogous to the...

The decrease in the energy of a photoelectric emission as a result of the simultaneous incidence of radiation having lower frequency than that forming the emission.

A device that uses electromagnetic fields to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses. As a beam of charged particles is passed through a mass spectrograph, the result is a...

A device used to measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules. It utilizes the Lorentz force generated by external magnetic field on a moving charged particle, in which the...

An electrical or optical device used to convert color coordinates.

The mathematical set of equations showing the relationship between oscillating electric and magnetic fields that are generated by an oscillating electric charge. Intrinsic to Maxwell's equations is...

An electric arc that is formed in mercury vapor through which an electric current flows. The intensity of the illumination of the arc depends mostly on its design and the conditions under which it...

A lamp that has mercury in a tube or bulb that has first been evacuated. The electricity travels through the vapor between the electrodes and produces a blue-green light that is rich in ultraviolet...

The electrical arc formed between metal rods that emits the spectrum of the metal itself. Commonly used in the chemical analysis of metals.

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other...

An interference filter in which a very thin metal foil with a periodic array of square holes (inductive mesh) or a thin plastic substrate with an array of metal squares (capacitative mesh) is used as...

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring substances. These materials are designed to manipulate electromagnetic waves in ways that are not...

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrays of subwavelength-scale artificial structures, often referred to as meta-atoms or meta-elements, arranged in a specific pattern to manipulate the propagation of...

Micro-robotics refers to the field of robotics that involves the design, development, and application of miniature robotic systems, often at the microscale. These robots, commonly referred to as...

A mid-infrared camera is a type of imaging device designed to capture images in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectral range, typically spanning wavelengths from approximately 3 to 12 µm. This...

Mode-locking is a technique used in lasers to produce ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of picoseconds, femtoseconds, or even attoseconds. This method synchronizes the phases of...

A method of spectral analysis in which some property of the sample is varied and the corresponding change is measured. The change is induced by a repetitive perturbation such as an electric field,...

A nonlinear crystal used to modulate a polarized beam of light by means of the Pockels effect. A Pockels cell is used as a voltage-controlled waveplate by means of applying a known voltage across the...

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...

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...